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HISTORY 



SECOND AVAR 



BETWEEN THE 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

AND 

G E E A T ■ B K I T A I :N', 

DECLARED BY . 

ACT OF CONGRESS, THE IStli OF JUNE, 1812, 
AND CONCLUDED BY PEACE, THE 15th OF FEDKUARY, 1815. 

BY 

CHARLES J. INGERSOLL. , _^ 

SECOND SERIES. — VOL. L (i 




EMBrvACIXG THE EVENTS OF 18U AND 1S15. 



PniLADELPniA: 

LIPPING OTT, GRAMEO &C0. 

1852. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 

LirPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO., 

the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and 
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREUTTPED lit J. FAOAN. T. K. AND P. G. COLUNS, PRINTERS. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

NAVAL HOSTILITIES — PRIVATEERS DARTMOOR PRISON. 

Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Essex — Her Cruise and Cap- 
ture — Decatur taken in the Frigate President — Last Action of the Frigate 
Constitution — Capture of the Penguin — Chase of the Hornet — Privateers, 
their Numbers and Cruises — Prize Law established by Judge Story — 
American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers Prince of 
Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Chasseur, Captain Boyle — His 
Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British Complaints — Pri- 
vateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General Armstrong — 
British Brig of war St. Lawrence captured by the Privateer Chasseur — 
Letters taken on board — American Naval Force at Sea when Peace was 
declared — American and British Captures during the War — Dartmoor 
Massacre Page 9 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF WAR LAW. 

War Law — Common Law — No Jury in Admiralty — International Law — The 
Exchange — Prize Law — Seizure by mere War — Freedom of the Seas — 
Supreme Court of the United States — The Judges — Attorney-General 
Pinkney — Admiralty Droits — European Publicists — Sir William Scott — 
British Prize Law adopted — Chief Justice Marshall dissenting — Case of 
the Nereid — Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800 — Free Ships make free 
Goods — Judicial Proceedings in Prize Cases — Enemy's Licenses — Alien 
Enemies — Militia — War Law, as administered in War with Mexico — 
Blockade — Contraband — Search — Free Ships, free Goods — Respect of 

Property and Religion — Martial Law as administered 71 

(5) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

FRENCH CONSULAR REPUBLIC. 

1799-1804. 



Tendency of the French Revolution to Representative Government — French 
in America — Reciprocal Influences of American and French Revolutions — 
Bonaparte's Arrival from Egypt and irregular Election as Chief Magis- 
trate — Consulate — His Personal Habits, Temper, Appearance, Manners — 
Temperance — Economy — Religion — Politics — Family — Latitia Ramo- 
lino, Mother of the Bonapartes — Arrighi — Cardinal Fesch — Elisa Bac- 
chiochi — Her Daughter Camarata — Pauline — Caroline — Achilles and 
Lucien Murat — Joseph's Wife and Family — Bonaparte's first Marriage — 
Josephine — Hortensia and Eugene Beauharnois — Lucien Bonaparte — His 
Family — Louis — Jerome — Joseph — Treaty with the United States" — 
Treaty of Amiens — Cornwallis — Consular Government — War by Eng- 
land — Royalist Plots — Count d' Artois — Pichegreu — Moreau — George 
Cadoudal — Duke of Enghein — His Execution — End of the Republic and 
beginning of the Empire 127 



CHAPTER IV. 

FRENCH REPUBLICAN EMPIRE. 

1804 — 1815 — 1844. 

The Consul Bonaparte elected Emperor Napoleon — Reformed Royalty of the 
Empire — Universal Suffrage — Banishment and Death of Moreau — Empire 
distinguished, by Joseph, from Kingdom — Republican France — Battle of 
Austerlitz and Peace of Presburg — Marriages and Coronations of the Bo- 
napartes — Thrones refused by Lucien, Louis, Eugene, and Charlotte — 
Accepted by Joseph and Jerome — Detriment of Bonaparte Family to Na- 
poleon Dynasty — Unprivileged Aristocracy — Treaty of Presburg — Divorce 
of Josephine — Espousal of Maria Louisa — Seizure of Spain — Inducements 
— Bourbons — Spanish War — Its Atrocities and Results — Emancipation 
of all Spanish America — Invasion of Russia — Napoleon's Reverses — Fatal 
Tyranny — Deserted by his Creatures, and afraid of the People — Maria 
Louisa and her Child's flight from Paris — Captured at Blois — Napoleon's 
Abdication — Death of Josephine — Sebastian! — Pozzo di Borgo — Napoleon's 
Return from Elba — Public Sentiment — His dread of the People — Their 
love of Him — Second Abdication — Banishment — Surrender — Transpor- 
tation — Confinement — Death — Sovereigns' Letters — Joseph in America — 
La Fayette — Duke of Reichstadt — Joseph in England — His Death in 
Italy — Representative Government 231 



HISTOEICAL SKETCH, 

ETC. 



CHAPTER I. 

NAVAL HOSTILITIES — PraVATEERS DARTMOOR PRISON. 

Sloops of war Wasp, Frolic, Peacock — Frigate Essex — Her Cruise and 
Capture — Decatur taken in tiie Frigate President — Last Action of tlie 
Frigate Constitution — Capture of the Penguin — Ciiase of the Hornet 
— Privateers, tiieir numbers and Cruises — Prize Law established by Judge 
Story — American Privateers and British Navy compared — Privateers 
Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux — The Chasseur, Captain 
Boyle — His Blockade Proclamation — Privateer Discipline — British com- 
plaints — Privateer construction — Baltimore Clippers — Privateer General 
Armstrong — British Brig of war St. Law'rence captured by tiie Privateer 
Chasseur — Letters taken on board — American Naval force at Sea when 
Peace was declared — American and British Captures during the War — 
Dartmoor Massacre. 

Of the seven naval engagements in 1814, the Americans 
gained four by confession of the English, and in two of the 
other three, when overpowered by irresistibly superior force, 
improved their national character by unexampled fortitude : 
for the captures of the frigates Essex and President enhanced 
the personal character of the vanquished, and improved the 
national character of their country. These disasters super- 
added unquestionable evidence of pre-eminent fortitude under 
discouraging circumstances to abundant preceding proofs that 
Americans brave dangers with alacrity. Some people excel in 
power of endurance, such as the English evinced at the battle 
of Waterloo. Others excel in fierceness of assault, such as the 

(9) 



10 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

French displayed there. But there is no record of a British 
vessel enduring the terrible blows inflicted on the Essex and 
the President before yielding, as I have been told by an Ame- 
rican naval officer not given to vaunting. Men of all nations 
fight gallantly, bravely, even desperately, as long as there is 
any chance or hope of success ; but few will persevere in braving 
death, when defeat is unavoidable. The misfortunes of the 
Essex and the President had that great alleviation. They es- 
tablished the title of the American mariners to passive as well 
as active courage in their highest attributes. 

Sloops of war named the Wasp, and the Frolic, and the 
Peacock, (after two of our English prizes, the Frolic and the 
Peacock, and the Wasp, which was taken from us,) the new 
vessels, each of about 500 tons, which is much smaller than 
American sloops of war now, put to sea in 1814. The Frolic, 
Captain Joseph Bainbridge, soon after she got to sea, was cap- 
tured on the 20th of April, 1814, by the frigate Orpheus, Cap- 
tain Pigot, without any contest except endeavoring to escape, 
when the sloop threw most of her guns overboard. The Pea- 
cock sailed from New York in March, 1814, under Captain 
Louis Warrington, a gentleman understood to be the natm-al 
son of Count Bochambeau, who commanded the French army 
which, united with Washington's, forced Cornwallis to sur- 
render at Yorktown, and put an end to the war of the Revo- 
lution. It was said too, that when Captain Warrington made 
his way to promotion and distinction. Count Rochambeau sent 
and offered to own him as his son; — to which he made answer, 
that having dishonored his mother, and deserted him when he 
needed protection, Captain Warrington had neither occasion 
nor desire for Count Rochambcau's paternity. Besides four- 
teen merchant vessels, taken during his cruising, Warring- 
ton captured, on the 29th of April, 1814, the brig of war 
Epervier, Captain Wales, nearly, or quite equal in force to the 
Peacock, but obliged to strike after an action in which the su- 
periority of the American was made every way obvious. The 
Epervier was sent into Savannah. The Peacock continued 
the cruise till October, when she returned to New York. 
The Wasp, Captain Johnson Blakely, put to sea from 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 11 

Portsmoutli, New Hampshire, about the first of May, 1814. 
On the 25th of June, 1814, after a very short, but on both 
sides gallant conflict, the Wasp took the brig of war Rein- 
deer, Captain Manners, who was killed, with many of his 
people, and his vessel burned to prevent re-capture. On 
the 1st of September, 1814, the Wasp compelled the British 
brig of war Avon, (of almost the same force), Captain Ar- 
buthnot, to strike ; but after she surrendered, and before Cap- 
tain Blakely could take possession of his prize, two other British 
vessels of war approached, and the Wasp was constrained to 
stand on the defensive, so that the Avon escaped. The 21st 
of September, 1814, when the Wasp captured a merchant brig 
called Atalanta, and put Midshipman, now Captain Gcisinger 
on board as prizemaster, who arrived with his prize at Savannah, 
the 4th of November, is the last that was ever heard of the 
Wasp, whose loss, by whatever means, after her gallant exploits, 
was a subject of universal national sorrow and anxious conjec- 
ture. American naval victories, with anything like equal force, 
had by that time become so common, that they were invariable. 
Dutch, at one period, asserted equality with English mariners, 
and subsequently English undeniable superiority to French, 
were neither of them ever so palpable as American superiority 
to English. Every battle was an American victory, in which 
ascendant the American privateers participated. In one of those 
free conversations which O'Meara relates of the loquacious 
Napoleon, too late convinced of American naval prowess, which 
as Emperor he unwisely disregarded, he remarked — 

'"The sea is yours — your seamen are as mnch superior to ours as tiie 
Dutch were once to yours. I think, however, that the Americans are better 
seamen than yours, because they are less numerous.' I observed that the 
Americans had a considerable number of English seamen in their service 
who passed for Americans, which was remarkable, as, independent of other 
circumstances, the American discipline on board of men-of-war was much 
more severe than ours ; and, that if the Americans had a large navy, they 
would find it impossible to have so many able seamen in each sliip as they 
had at present. When I observed that the American discipline was more 
severe than ours, he smiled and said, 'that is hard to believe.' " 

The profane remark of another great warrior, Frederick, tliat 
Providence always sides with the strongest forces, was com- 



12 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

pletely and wonderfully disproved by the American vessels, not 
more than one to a hundred, defeating the British. 

After Captain Porter's first cruise in the frigate Essex, he 
brought her into the Delaware, where she lay in the stream off 
Chester, at which village his wife's father, William Anderson, 
kept a tavern. He was one'**of the members who represented 
Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives of the United 
States. Soon after my election with him to Congress, in October, 
1812, some of our party entertained Captain Porter at a dinner, 
at his father-in-law's tavern in Chester, a few days before the. 
Essex sailed, the 27th or 28th of October, 1812, on her last 
and memorable cruise, one of the most remarkable that naval 
history registers. Porter was a small, slight, and rather ill- 
favored New England man, of genius, nerve, and capacity for 
heroic achievement. He avowedly hated the English marine 
as heartily as it was possible for Admiral Lord Collingwood, 
with racy but neither useless or perhaps censm-able British pa- 
triotism to hate the French ; which detestation that mild and 
excellent ofiicer said he deemed his duty to his country. For 
Porter, when a poor cabin-boy, had been seized by a British 
press-gang, and resisted it unto death ; made his escape, fugi- 
tive and hable to be treated as a deserter ; worked his passage 
home as a common sailor ; and, like hundreds more of American 
sea Hannibals, had sworn vengeance upon the altar of freedom 
against the hateful lords of the ocean, with whom, as other 
American naval officers, he longed for opportunity to prove 
that they were able to cope. "Free trade and sailors' rights," 
the motto which he flung out from the mast-head of his little 
frigate, was in his heart's core, and he was desperately resolved 
to brand it on British shoulders. American seafaring hatred 
of the English was then a pervading sentiment, when general 
repugnance of Americans to English was neither unnatural 
nor .barbarous. After years of outrageous hostilities, civil wars, 
kindred conflicts, impressment by sea, conflagration and havoc 
ashore, bloody indignities every where, contumelious English 
habits and arrogant overbearing. Porter, Decatur, and other 
naval officers, and Jackson and Brown in the army, were fired 
with national animosity which helped exploit. Nor did the in- 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 13 

tense aversion of brave, high-tempered combatants prevent, but 
on the contrary superinduced graceful and cordial amity with 
former foes, as soon as the contest was ended and respect was 
reciprocated. If there is much to admire in the refinements of 
antagonists in war, who adorn battle and carnage with chival- 
rous observances of good-breeding, the savage fm-y with which 
warriors are sometimes inflamed, sharpens vigilance, increases 
energy, and doubles force. Americans and English quarrel 
like brothers or lovers, with extreme bitterness ; but their re- 
conciliations, individual and national, are therefore the more 
cordial, and, it should be hoped, lasting. 

"When he found the Atlantic coast of South America unfruit- 
ful of prizes and adventures. Porter resolved to seek them be- 
yond Cape Horn in the Pacific, and in spite of storms, dangers, 
and privations of all sorts, hoist his flag among the whalers. It 
was an adventure full of peril, which none but a fearless seaman 
could undertake with any chance of success. All the South 
American states were in the interest of Britain. There was 
not a port where he could be safe from the mighty foe he braved. 
Yet he broke up the British Avhale trade entirely, so that whaling 
has been gradually becoming ever since almost an exclusive 
American pursuit, until lately the conquest of California, with 
its marvellous inducements, ensures the whole Pacific sea, and 
eventually all its Asiatic borders, China, India, and Japan, to 
American commercial enterprise. For near twelve months 
after Porter sailed on that expedition, he was hardly heard of 
at home, and then it was only through Jamaica, England, or 
some other English place, that his countrymen learned the enor- 
mous havoc he was making on the enemy's Pacific trade. He 
constituted a fleet of nine vessels out of the British whalers 
he captured ; manned, victualled, armed, refitted, and in every 
way equipped his frigate and her consorts ; paid for all he had 
to buy out of more than half a hundred thousand dollars in coin 
which he took in one of his prizes, and was for many months 
the terror of our enemies, and protector of American interests 
in those seas. Numerous ships of war were despatched from 
many quarters, to arrest and subdue him ; which would pro- 
bably never have happened, had he not, sated with merely 



14 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

unresisting prizes, after sweeping tlie Pacific of mercliant-men, 
gone in quest of a frigate of superior force, for the glory of 
fighting her ; nor when they at last met, would he have been 
vanquished but for Spanish complicity with British, shrinking 
from that gallant and lofty defiance of all foes, theretofore not 
only the boast and glory but the strength of the English navy. 
If either a neutral harbor had shielded him, or his conquerors 
had fought him manfully, his marvellous cruise would have 
closed, in all probability, by a brilliant victory. 

Shortly before war was declared. President Madison sent 
Joel R. Poinsett on a confidential mission through South Ame- 
rica, to ascertain and report the state of things, and of public 
sentiment, in those Spanish colonial countries. Mr. Poinsett, 
afterwards American Minister in Mexico, Secretary of War 
during Mr. Van Buren's presidency, and for some time member 
of Congress, was a South Carolinian, educated in England, 
enlightened by extensive travel, well-informed, well-bred, and 
warmly devoted to the republican development of the United 
States. Notwithstanding many attachments formed in Eng- 
land, like other Americans he was accused of enmity to Eng- 
land, because in the protracted controversies provoking war 
between that country and this, he espoused the cause of his 
own. He wrote from South America, advising government 
that a frigate should be sent round Cape Horn, to show our 
flag in those seas, where it was the general impression, as it was 
also common elsewhere, that by the treaty acknowledging in- 
dependence, the United States were not allowed to employ 
large vessels of war. There were, moreover, Spanish privateers 
annoying our commerce. For these reasons Mr. Poinsett ad- 
vised the employment of a frigate on the South American coast. 
But it was not by that advice that Captain Porter sailed round 
Cape Horn and into the Pacific. His cruise was his own pro- 
ject. From Mr. Poinsett, who was with him at Valparaiso, I 
am enabled to add some particulars to the memorable catastrophe 
of Porter's capture, correctly described by Fenimore Cooper in 
his Naval History, and by others, but with one mistake, as Mr. 
Poinsett understood from Captain Hillyer. With whatever cold- 
blooded tenacity he clung to disproportionate force to over- 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 15 

whelm his antagonist, whom it would have been more politic as 
well as honorable to fight on equal terms, yet Captain Hillycr dis- 
claimed superior orders to cruise in company with the Cherub, 
or to rely on any reinforcement. The Phoebe sailed and cruised 
alone ; her consorting with the Cherub was accidental. Cap- 
tain Hillyer deemed it, he said, his duty to subdue a dangerous 
enemy by irresistible force, rather than risk the result on 
doubtful terms. Reinforcement he claimed as his duty ; and 
with eighty-one guns in a neutral harbor, out of range of all but 
his enemy's six guns, to slaughter them till they surrendered. 

Sloops of war were combined in that enterprise. The frigate 
Phoebe cruised alone, and her junction afterwards with the 
Cherub was accidental, not from any superior orders or design 
to cruise in couples for the American frigate. The Spanish 
harbors and authorities were friendly to the British, and hostile 
to the Americans. A Spanish port was scarcely neutral, owing 
to British and Spanish alliance, and the commanding British 
navy, little scrupulous of neutral rights. When the Phoebe, 
having discovered the Essex at Valparaiso, after six weeks block- 
ade boldly steered at last into that harbor, her resolution to at- 
tack there was so ostensible, that Porter might have justifiably 
anticipated what the British frigate gave every reason to appre- 
hend. Porter did not believe that Hillyer would respect the 
neutrality of the port. All cleared and prepared for action, 
her men at quarters, the Phoebe steered right for the Essex, if 
not to attack, at least to defy, to reconnoitre close aboard, scan 
the American and display the British force; and currents set 
the Phoebe probably still nearer the Essex than was intended. 
Their yards nearly touched. Collision seemed inevitable. 
Porter's men were at quarters eager for conflict, nor did he allow 
a spar or a rope to be altered or touched. If the Phoebe's yards 
had not been trimmed, she Avould have been afoul of the Essex, 
and then Porter would have instantly boarded. In a clear, 
calm voice he called to his adversary, " Captain Hillyer ! if 
you tbuch my ship I shall board you," at the same time ordering 
all hands to the starboard quarter, boarders to repel boarders. 
Captain Hillyer, elderly and grey-headed, with probably no 
rash design, pale and evidently perturbed, protested again and 



16 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

again that liis ship's position was accidental, that there was no 
design of aggression. The American boarders, armed to the 
teeth, were at their posts ; blows and bloodshed were at hand. 
Mr. Poinsett, who was in the Essex, with military tastes and 
self-possession, says it was a moment of intense excitement, — 
when the Phoebe fell off a little without touching the Essex, — 
Captain Hillyer's disquiet sufficiently demonstrating that he 
did not intend to attack. Just as the Phoebe cleared the 
Essex, the British first lieutenant, Graham, called out, "Don't 
be alarmed — we shall not touch you." "We are not at all 
alarmed, but wish you would touch us," was the prompt retort 
of a young American oflEicer, Decatur McKnight, from the fore 
chains. 

If the Essex had put to sea immediately, it would have been 
a breach of neutrality for the Phoebe and Cherub to pursue 
her directly from the harbor of Valparaiso ; and probably the 
British vessels needed provisions, having been five months at 
sea in quest of the Essex, and six weeks blockading her at 
Valparaiso. But when Captain Porter was told by Mr. ' Poin- 
sett of these advantages for going to sea, he at once rejected 
them in the hope of an engagement with the Phoebe, for which 
he was anxious. Captain Hilly er, losing no time in supplying 
his two ships, resumed his station off the port. Continual 
manoeuvi'es ensued. Porter frequently sailing out of the harbor, 
in order to bring the Phoebe to action, and likewise to try the 
speed of the Essex, which he found to be greater than that of 
the Phoebe. But Hillyer never suffered the Cherub to leave 
the Phoebe, nor would the Phoebe engage the Essex alone. Qn 
one occasion, when the Cherub happened to be far to leeward, 
the Phoebe made her appearance off the harbor, hoisted her 
flag, and fired a gun to windward. That, in naval etiquette, 
being considered a challenge. Porter immediately accepted it, 
weighed anchor, and stood out to meet his antagonist. But as 
the Essex approached the Phoebe, the latter squared away and 
ran down towards the Cherub. Captain Hillyer afterwards 
assured Captain Porter that he did not mean to challenge the 
Essex, but that the gun fired to windward was a signal to the 
Cherub, to bear up and join the Phoebe. Porter failing to 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 17 

bring Ilillycr to single combat, attempted a plan for depriving 
liim of tbe Cherub. Observing that she occupied the same 
place several nights, Porter manned boats for an expedition to 
surprise, board, and capture the Cherub in the dark. All his 
measures were taken with great circumspection. Reconnoiter- 
ing in person, and confident of success, he took command 
of the boats, and in profound silence and darkness made for 
tlie British corvette. But she had changed her position, the 
approach of the boats was by some means known on board the 
Cherub ; the sea around her was illuminated by blue lights, 
and the boats were obliged to return to Valparaiso. When 
that attempt was made, Mr. Poinsett was absent. Hearing of 
it on his retm-n, he warned Captain Porter that it was a breach 
of neutrality to fit out an armed expedition from a neutral 
port. It was that circumstance which prevented our govern- 
ment from demanding satisfaction of the Chilian for the 
much grosser violation of neutrality, committed by the British 
in the capture of the Essex within Chilian jurisdiction ; for 
which, but for Porter's boat expedition, Mr. Poinsett Avould 
have filed a protest, on which our government would have de- 
manded indemnity for the loss of the Essex : for though per- 
haps the Chilian government were not aware, yet the British 
were, of the armament of the boat expedition at Valparaiso, 
and its sailing from the neutral port. 

After many ineffectual efforts to bring the Phoebe to single 
combat. Porter at last determined to go to sea, — believing that 
the Essex could out-sail both the British ships. The cabin bul- 
warks were taken down, and the long twelve-poimd guns were 
run out to serve as stern chasers. Mr. Poinsett, who slept on 
board the Essex the night before her departure, took leave of 
Captain Porter, when his vessel made sail from the harbor of 
Valparaiso, on the 28th of March, 1814, in one of those fierce 
gales common there. The two British ships, always pru- 
dently managed, were under light canvass, on the look-out. 
As the Essex rounded the point, discovering that he could pass 
to windward between them and the land, Captain Porter ven- 
tured to haul up without taking in topsails, and in doubling the 
headland cr.rried away his maintopsail, precipitating several 

Vol. III. — 2 



18 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

of his crew into the sea, some of whom it was impossible to 
save in that first and ominous disaster of a fatal day. That mis- 
fortune left Porter no alternative but to return to Valparaiso, 
where, if he could have regained his former berth, it might 
have been possible to defend his ship; but, crippled as she 
was, he was obliged to run her to the head of the bay, and 
there cast anchor. The Cherub, shaking out her reefs, quickly 
followed. But though bravely brought into action by her cap- 
tain, Tucker, he was soon wounded, and his vessel so battered 
by the Essex, that the Cherub hauled off to repair damages 
before the Phoebe opened her fire. Following in his consort's 
Avake, Captain Hillyer took the Cherub's place, but soon found 
the fire of the Essex intolerable. His first lieutenant, Ingram, 
and some of his men, were killed ; the Phoebe was repeatedly 
hulled, and the action began so favorably to the Essex that the 
Phoebe, like the Cherub, drew off, and retired beyond the range 
of the American cannonade. As Captain Hillyer was going 
into action, his first lieutenant, Ingram, warmly urged his com- 
mander to fight the Americans fairly, and without any undue 
advantage. " Let us," said he, a few minutes before that brave 
seaman was shot dead, " let us have no Cherub to help us, but 
with the Phoebe alone, lay the Essex aboard, yard-arm to yard- 
arm, and fight like Britons." Captain Hillyer told Mr. Poin- 
sett, who walked with him at Ingram's funeral, that he was an 
excellent officer, who, in their long sea-service together, Hillyer 
had never known to be insubordinate but on that occasion, 
when he was much excited, "and I was obliged," said the Cap- 
tain, "to overrule his request. It was our duty, I told him, to 
use whatever means were placed at our disposal, to capture an 
enemy who had done so much damage to British commerce, and 
whose escape would be attended Avith such serious results." In 
Captain Hillyer's official despatch, there are odors not only 
of duty but of sanctity and sentimentalism, of which American 
history has no right to deprive him. The thanks of the mer- 
chants, whose commerce he rescued from a dangerous assailant, 
and the favor of his superiors, he probably earned. But the 
heroism of British naval exploit was buried with his lieutenant. 
And if that heroism was warmed by the blood of Byng, shed 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 19 

for alleged cowardice, it may be questioned wlicthcr Captain 
Ilillyer's cold-blooded calculations were more profitable to the 
policy than to the true glory of lords of the ocean. To mas- 
sacre the brave people of the Essex with eighty-one cannon, 
when out of reach of their six, was more benumbing to British 
enterprise than the admiralty order to avoid large American 
frigates, which Admiral Napier coarsely characterised in Par- 
liament as only fit to be thrown into the quarter-gallery. 

Mr. Poinsett, who had gone ashore from the Essex in the 
boat of the Essex Junior, one of Porter's prizes fitted out and 
manned from his ship, and put under command of his first 
Lieutenant Downes, mounting his horse gallopped to the head 
of the bay, earnestly surveying the various eventful occurrences 
between the British and American vessels. At the beginning 
of the battle he saw that the Essex fired with fatal effect, and 
so repelled her first assailant ; that the Phoebe's firing was wild 
and pointless, while she suffered from the deadly shots of the 
Essex. But when the Phoebe likewise retired, and the British 
ships, both out of range of the guns of the Essex, from their 
long eighteen-pound cannon swept her decks, with no danger 
to the British, it was, like target-firing, with cruel certainty. 
Mr. Poinsett could distinctly see the shots from the Essex 
plunge into the water without reaching the Phoebe, while her 
shot, when they missed the Essex, struck the shore not far 
from where Mr. Poinsett was. During that massacre, the 
Americans, officers and men, all emulating their noble captain, 
gloriously immolated themselves to the honor of their un- 
tarnished flag, and the glory of their distant country. The 
Essex was repeatedly on fire. More than half of her crew 
were either killed, wounded, drowned, or escaped ashore. 
Valparaiso, built at the foot, or on the accli\dty of lofty 
hills, furnished thousands of eye-witnesses upon them, of 
the sanguinary sacrifice, continued for nearly two hours, by 
the cannon of two vessels firing upon one, disabled and nearly 
iniarmed, the two executioners keeping out of gun-shot, where 
it was impossible for their victim to hurt them. Cajnaiu 
Ilillyer's official despatch stated that in the out.-;et of the 

little inauspicinns :" and 



20 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

that " the colors of the Essex were not struck until the loss, 
in killed and wounded, was so awfully great, her shattered 
condition so seriously bad, as to render further resistance un- 
availing." 

That engagement was the most desperate by sea throughout 
the war. The commanders of the antagonist ships had Avorked 
their respective crews to intense, if not to delirious hostility. 
They fought under numerous flags and ensigns, defying each 
other: the American motto "free trade and sailor's rights" 
defensive ; the British motto " God, our country and liberty, 
traitors offend both," insulting. During the six weeks while 
the British lay off Valparaiso watching the Essex, the crews 
exchanged challenges by letters and rhymes, several of which 
were afterwards published in the Analectic Magazine by Mr. 
Paulding, who was Secretary of the Navy when Mr. Poinsett 
was Secretary of War. National antipathy had been so excited, 
that many of Porter's crew, rather than be captured swam 
ashore, whilst others were drowned in the effort. They re- 
paired to Mr. Poinsett's residence in a state of extreme indig- 
nation : and Captain Porter's ofiicial letters state that Mr. 
Poinsett called on the Governor to vindicate the violated neu- 
trality of the port. Only one hundred and sixty of the Amer- 
icans fell into captivity, which Captain Hillyer mitigated as 
much as he could by generous treatment. In that respect full 
homage was rendered to him by his prisoners, as he did equal 
justice to their heroic fortitude. But Captain Hillyer refused 
Mr. Poinsett permission to go home in the Essex Junior when 
that vessel was fitted as a cartel to carry home Captain Porter 
and his men. Arrived off Long Island, New York, July 5, 
1814, the Essex Junior was overhauled by the British razee-ship 
Saturn, Captain Nash, who, receiving Captain Porter kindly, 
permitted the Essex Junior to proceed homewards ; but soon 
countermanded that permission on the assumption that Captain 
Hillyer was not authorised to make the arrangements he did 
for Porter's liberation. Incensed at this disappointment, which 
might lead to his being sent to Halifax as a prisoner, he indig- 
nantly gave Captain Nash notice that he (Porter) was no longer 
on parole, and that night leaving with Lieutenant Downes a 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 21 

reproachful message for Nash, Porter pushed off m the ship's 
boat fifty miles from land, and effected his escape ashore at 
New York, where he was welcomed with great enthusiasm, the 
horses taken from his carriage, which was drami by the popu- 
lace to his lodgings, witii every demonstration of general 
delight. Captain Nash finally alloAvcd Lieutenant Downcs 
to proceed with the Essex Junior ; but not till his high-mettled 
commander, chafed by ungenerous discomfiture and dreading 
more disappointment, abruptly broke from honourable confine- 
ment, Avitli imprecations on captors who unjustly impressed 
and unmanfully overpowered him. 

His victimation was hailed by his country as one of its 
greatest naval achievements. The proud, brave, and free 
nation of mighty islanders, by whom an admiral was executed, 
and all naval officers disgraced for failing to encounter equal 
force, magnanimously deplored, admired, and extolled their off- 
spring's hecatomb, a hundred noble seamen killed, mutilated, 
or drowned, sacrificing life to honor in defence of the invinci- 
ble flag proclaiming free trade and sailor's rights ; glorious ex- 
ample to the American, formidable warning to the British 
navies. Public opinion was unanimous throughout the United 
States that such victims as Decatur and Porter were martyrs 
of infinite promise. British naval history affords no instance 
of greater excellence in this great British similitude of the 
greatest Roman virtue. Porter's capture was one of the few 
subjects on which the American press was of one mind. The 
Boston Gazette, one of the papers most opposed to the war, 
and the United States Gazette, scarcely less so, concurred with 
the advocates of the war in condemnation of Captain Ilillyer. 
It was commonly said that he had orders from his superiors to 
disregard neutral ports and places in pursuit and capture of the 
American frigate, which had done so much injury to British 
commmerce in the Pacific. Unlawfully violating neutral harbors, 
in order to subdue an enemy whom he eluded in fair combat, and 
overpowered by sanguinary contrivance, was universally con- 
demned by all admirers of naval chivalry and advocates of inter- 
national law. Exchanged soon after their arrival, Porter and 
his men were engaged on the Potomac against the Seahorse 



22 NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 

and Euryalus, British frigates, Captains Gordon and Napier, 
who sacked Alexandria, and aided much in their expulsion, but 
laden with booty, from Virginia. 

On the tempestuous night of January 14, 1815, in a snow- 
storm, Decatur escaped to sea from New York in the frigate 
President, but, without a pilot, in the darkness and tempest, 
the ship ran aground, injuring her sailing qualities ; and when, 
as was alleged by many, treacherous lights from shore apprised 
the enemy of her emergency. Next day four ships of war, 
the razee Majestic, Commodore Hayes, the frigates Endymion, 
Pomona and Tenedos, were all under press. of sail in pursuit. 
The Endymion, which outsailed the other British vessels, and 
could have engaged the President alone if so inclined, at indeed 
close encounter, was considerably worsted in the chase. At mid- 
night the three other vessels overtook the President, mobbed her, 
as our consolatory phrase was at the time, and Decatur proudly 
surrendered his sword, not to any single conqueror, but to the 
commander of the squadron : after attesting like Porter a noble 
spirit of resistance, which would not yield till more would have 
been much worse than useless. The destruction endured in 
the Essex and the President exceeded that on board any 
English vessel of war before she struck her flag. 

On the 20th of February 1815, the frigate Constitution, Cap- 
tain Stewart, brought to action and captured the Cyane and the 
Levant, British vessels of war, after a triangular moonlight 
engagement, and took his two prizes into Porto Praya ; off which 
place, on the 11th of March, the Leander, the Newcastle, and 
the Acasta, three heavy British men-of-war, appeared. Cap- 
tain Stewart immediately cut his cables and put to sea. mth the 
Cyane and the Levant. The Cyane escaped. The Levant re- 
treated into Porto Praya, and was there retaken by the British. 
The three British ships, each one equal to the Constitution, 
pm-sued her, and it was much said at the time that one 
of them might have overtaken her, if the commanding officer, 
Sir George Collier, had not kept them all three together ; who 
committed suicide sometime after, unable to bear the sting of 
aspersions cast upon his courage. Captain Stewart's uncom- 
mon self-posssession, decision, and judgment, were universally 



NAVAL HOSTILITIES. 23 

acknowledged, not only in his action but his escape with one 
of his prizes from a force so superior. 

The last naval engagement occurred on the 2od of Febru- 
ary 1815, between the sloop-of-war Hornet, Captain Biddle, and 
the British brig-of-war Penguin. The Penguin was sent to sea 
by the Admiral, manned and prepared to take the Young Wasp, 
an American privateer. The Hornet and Penguin were as well- 
matched as could be in class, size, and metal. The British 
vessel's captain and many of her crew were killed, while the 
comparative injury done the combatants proved, beyond a 
doubt, that the British were no match for the Americans. 
An English vessel of war was more certainly then triumphantly 
captured by an American, than theretofore a French by a 
British vessel of war. So settled had that result become in 
British apprehensions, that official reports of their naval en- 
gagements ceased to be published, probably in order to conceal 
the comparison of loss, and British vessels by standing order 
from the Admiralty were directed not to fight with Americans 
of equal force. 

The war of 1812 ended as it began, by a remarkable display 
of American seamanship and resolution, without bloodshed. 
Soon after the Wasp took the Frolic in October 1812, they were 
both captured by the Poictiers, British ship-of-the-line. Bid- 
die Avas a lieutenant on board the Wasp. Not long after, when 
commander of the Hornet he took the Penguin, he was again 
in jeopardy of captivity from another British ship-of-the-line, 
the Cornwallis 74. His escape from that vessel was an exploit 
like that of the Constitution from the squadron of frigates that 
chased her in July 1812. During several days and nights the 
Cornwallis pursued the Hornet, several times getting so near 
as to throw shot over and into her. But Biddle had once un- 
dergone the mortification of such a reverse, and was resolved 
not to submit to it again. He lightened the vessel by throw- 
ing overboard every thing that might impede her sailing, and 
finally escaped with but one gun, no anchor, cable, boat or any 
part of his ship's burden that could be cast into the sea. 
Thirty-five years afterwards Congress passed an act to allovr 
'My. Zantzinger, the purser of the Hornet, payment for Avhat he 



24 PRIVATEERS. 

had been obliged to sacrifice in that memorable chase, when it 
appeared that the knives and forks with which the officers and 
crew ate their meals, were among the immolations made by a 
spirit of indomitable resolution, which, as in that instance, sel- 
dom fails whenever heroically exercised. The superior seaman- 
ship and superior self-possession by which the war on the ocean 
began when Captain Hull escaped from a squadron, and by 
which it ended when Captain Biddle in a sloop baffled a ship-of- 
the-line, contributed as much to our reputation for marine su- 
periority, as the bloodiest battle. Hull did not fight the 
Guerriere, nor Biddle the Penguin, with more judicious spirit 
than they both displayed in surmounting jeopardy to which 
many brave seamen would have succumbed ; proving that calm 
considerate courage often triumphs over the most desperate 
circumstances. 

The war of 1812 closed on the ocean some months posterior 
to the treaty of peace, after a contest inappreciably important 
— not only to the United States, but for all maritime nations. 
Mankind were emancipated by it from British naval dominion, 
as galling as that great continental despotism against which all 
Europe took up arms ; from both of which the world was re- 
lieved together, and probably for ever. 

The navy, however, has abundant chronicles, historical re- 
cords, biographical eulogiums, and other means of applausive 
recollection. But there is an arm, wonderfully used in that 
war, of which it has always been my intention to register some 
of the achievements. No historian has characterised the Ame- 
rican privateers ; whose deeds, (not always printed at all, and 
when published, only scattered through newspapers, their 
value underrated, their characters disparaged), demand not 
only the patriot's but the statesman's consideration. Militia 
of the seas, like the militia ashore, in the war of 1812 rivalled 
the navy and the army, in exploits, in humanity, in all that 
war can do to make peace. 

The United States had uncommon inducements to assault 
British commerce by means of private armed vessels : almost 
without a navy to contend, and altogether too small to cope 
with the greatest naval power in the world. Nearly a thousand 



PRIVATEERS. 25 

American merchant vessels had been, as we averred, illegally 
taken and condemned by the British ; whose commerce it was 
befitting retribution to harass by armed private cruisers. Of 
one hundred thousand and more American seamen, registered 
at the custom-houses in 1812, a large portion were thrown out 
of employment by war, to remain idle, destitute, discontented 
and mischievous, unless employed in privateers. The national 
vessels could not employ one tenth of them. Through their 
instrumentality, the national force might be most eifectually 
brought to bear on the maritime enemy ; and private contri- 
bution economically thus reinforce public action. This has 
always been, and will be, not only a maritime but a privateer- 
ing people. Their freedom, and their enterprise, which is the 
ofispring of their freedom, and their habit of doing many things 
individually, which in other countries are exclusively done by 
government, must always render sea-volunteers a numerous 
and powerful American force. Nearly one hundred years ago, 
when the port of New York was insignificant compared Avith its 
present capacity, no less than 48 privateers, manned by 5660 
men, armed with 695 cannon, in the year 1758, sailed from 
that single port to cruise against the commerce of France, 
then not a fifth of what British commerce was in 1812. 

As it was quite uncertain, till the act passed Congress, whe- 
ther war would be declared, owners and sailors could not make 
their arrangements till some weeks after the declaration. Yet 
within three months 219 British vessels were captured, armed 
with 574 cannons and manned by 3108 men, of which hostile 
annoyance to the enemy, individual American gain, and gain to 
the national treasury, privateers accomplished the greater part. 
During two years and ten months of the war's continuance, 
more than 2400 vessels, public and private, armed and unarmed, 
were taken by American cruisers from the British. Allowing 
750 of those to have been re-captured, about 1650 prizes re- 
mained, either brought into American ports, or destroyed 
at sea, and so totally lost to the enemy. Of these prizes, 
privateers took about 1200 ; which, at an average of 30 
men to each prize, gave 36,000 prisoners, and at an average 
of 30,000 dollars, as the value of each vessel and cargo, 



26 PRIVATEERS. 

despoiled Great Britain of 36,000,000 dollars, thereby in- 
creasing sea risks, insurance, convoys, and losses beyond all 
precedent. Every sea-port from Eastport to Savannah ejacu- 
lated privateers, manned by experienced officers and thorough- 
bred seamen, familiar with the seas and all their perils ; fond 
of adventures, greedy of gain, hating, without fearing, the do- 
mineering self-styled lords of the ocean, who so long impressed 
and imprisoned their persons, seized, spoliated, ravaged their 
property, and insulted their country. From those very parts 
of the United States where aversion to the war raged, (and 
often equipped by traders delirious with disaffection, from 
ports of New England,) within the first month after war was 
declared, more than a hundred privateers rushed to the ocean 
for prey. Thirty-seven prizes were sent into Salem, one of the 
head-quarters of what was called the peace party, by priva- 
teers, one of them named the Timothy Pickering, captured by 
those from the three ports of Salem, Gloucester, and Marblehead, 
within the first six weeks of hostilities. A privateer, pierced 
for fourteen guns, was launched at' Providence, R. I., in seven- 
teen days after her building began. In vain did the opposition 
endeavor to prove that privateering was unprofitable ; that our 
privateers, as well as unarmed vessels, were taken by the enemy 
to a greater amount than our people took from them. The ac- 
count made up at Salem in November, 1813, reckoned 675,000 
dollars, and upwards, ascertained proceeds of sales there alone, 
of prize-property, against a debit of 164,000 dollars, all the 
losses that could be counted. Some of the prizes were worth 
one, two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars, and even 
more. The Dromo, a Boston shallop of twenty-seven tons and 
one gun, captured the Guano, a British ship of three hundred 
tons, with a valuable cargo, sent into Salem. The Mary Ann, 
of one gun, captured and sent into Charleston, S. C, two brigs 
and two schooners, well loaded, armed and manned, with valu- 
able cargoes. British Transport, No. 50, loaded with cannon, 
musketry, and other warlike utensils, soldiers' clothing, camp 
equipage, wine, and much valuable cargo, but navigated by 
twelve men who refused to fight, on her way from Halifax to 
St. Johns was taken and sent into Gloucester, by the privateer 



PRIVATEERS. 27 

MaJison, of one gun, in sight and despite of a British sloop of 
yv'dv of twenty-two guns, whose launch, armed with forty men, 
the privateer's men beat oiF with great execution, and escaped 
from the sloop of war by superior sailing. 

It was calculated that the decisions of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, condemning American A'essels sailing 
under British licenses, made good to the owners of private 
armed vessels from Salem and Marblehead alone, two of the 
most disaffected towns of Massachusetts, more than 650,000 
dollars. More than 4,000,000 was the estimated value of 
licensed vessels captured and condemned : all in addition to 
the American gains and British losses, by British vessels cap- 
tured and secured. Twenty-six privateers, mostly well-armed 
and equipped, sailed from New York soon after war was de- 
clared, mounting 212 cannons and with 2339 seamen. More 
than 200 valuable American vessels and cargoes got safe 
into New York, during June, July, and August, 1812, after 
Avar began, before the enemy had beleaguered the American 
coasts, and when American naval expeditions, both by priva- 
teers and public vessels, were continual. 

In spite of political opposition, lucrative enterprise armed 
the ports of Massachusetts for aggressive and eflfective war ; 
and while the state would not even defend its soil, many of its 
excellent mariners, and some disaffected merchants, sought 
gain by captui-es, Avhen it was no longer attainable by com- 
merce. There was, indeed, some revival of the maritime spirit 
of the revolution there. The hulk of an old privateer of that 
period, called the Fame, of Boston, was refitted, and Avent to sea 
under a Captain Green. Baltimore sent forth many and superior 
privateers ; one of them, called the llossie, under that gay and 
gallant veteran, Joshua Barney, who commanded the Hyder 
Ali privateer in the war of the revolution, when, after a severe 
conflict, he took the General Monk, a A'essel of the royal 
British naA^y. On his first cruise in 1812, he captured more 
than 3600 tons of British shipping, A-alued at a million and 
a half of dollars, Avith 217 prisoners, 108 of whom he sent, in 
one of his prizes, on parole, Avith a receipt of exchange, into 
Halifax, Avith his compliments to Admiral SaA\-yer, commanding 



28 PKIVATEERS. 

there. An American whale-boat arrived at Portland on the 
deck of her prize, upon which the captors hoisted their tiny 
vessel of war. 

The American sea-ports abounded with seamen eager for 
service, and merchants to fit out privateers. Excepting the 
British, the American seamen outnumbered those of all 
Europe ; to whom sea-roving Avas habitual, for whom storms 
and rocks had few terrors, and who, one and all, considered 
themselves, as they were, at least as good, if not better 
sailors than the famous British tars. The Dutch, the Danish, 
the Spanish, Italian, and French sea-faring population had 
been so thoroughly vanquished by the English, that they 
were afraid of their victors. The Americans had no such 
feeling. Oh the contrary, the British were become afraid of 
them. And though there were gallant exceptions, yet impressed 
men, long pent up in wooden walls, could not fail to perceive 
that their officers were shy of equal combat with the once im- 
pressed and despised Yankees. French ships well armed, and 
manned with French, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian sailors, sub- 
mitted to be blockaded by English ships of only equal, if not 
inferior, force. But British seamen found that Nelson's 
favorite captain, Hardy, did not venture to blockade Decatur 
at New London, without much superior force ; that Yeo always 
evaded Chauncey, on Lake Ontario, unless greatly superior ; 
and that not only frigates, but American privateers, with im- 
punity shot to sea through the strictest British blockades, and 
often back again to port, with valuable prizes. American pri- 
vateers, too, generally outsailed British cruisers : whether be- 
cause better built, better manned, or more boldly manoeuvred. 
They sometimes audaciously exchanged shots with frigates and 
ships-of-the-line, proudly styled and commanded as parts of his 
Britannic Majesty's royal navy. On more than one occasion 
American privateers captured vessels of the British navy by 
boarding. They ridiculed paper blockades, landed on British 
shores, frequented British seas, by dashing audacity defied, per- 
plexed, and damaged British maritime authority, property, and 
pride. By that striking retribution, so often marking the 
course of human events, the ocean was alive with despised 



PRIVATEERS. 29 

enemies, long provoked, never feared, amazing all the world 
as alone able to break the British trident. 

There was retribution also ashore, as well as at sea. British 
injustice, powerfully repelled by privateer force, was severely 
retaliated by prize law, breaking forth in that New England, 
where state authorities, the bench, the pulpit and the tribune 
Avore loudest in denunciations of hostilities. A young Salem 
lawyer, just promoted to the Supreme Court; of the United 
States, and riding the most maritime circuit of the Union, 
abounding with sea-ports crowded with seamen thrown out of, 
and thirsting for employment ; inhabited by enterprising mer- 
chants in the fervor of judicial apprenticeship, selected from the 
war party for his place, signalised it by impregnating virgin 
American admiralty law with the lustful rapacities of the Eng- 
lish code. Adopting Sir "William Scott's elegant and capti- 
vating enforcements of an extremely un-English system, 
descended from the Star Chamber and Spanish inquisition, 
Judge Story fleshed his maiden decrees with prize law that 
rendered privateering the most profitable pursuit of New Eng- 
land against Old England. Scarcely a dogma of British prize- 
lavr but found in him an expounder, adroit, indefatigable, and 
independent. He struck at traitors, smugglers, licensers, and 
prisoners, with equal and unsparing force. Condemnations in 
his courts followed captures with rapid execution and learned 
illustration. All the harsh, ex parte rules of foreign codes, 
engrafted on an English stock totally unlike them, suspicious, 
selfish, and grasping, were inflicted — admiralty droits and all — 
on English commerce, for the benefit of American privatecrsmen 
in that part of this country where all hostility against England 
was almost universally denounced as unnatural. The sea-roving 
and lucrific propensities of the most enterprising of people, 
then condemned to inaction, were stimulated and vouchsafed by 
pursuits as seductive as the later discoveries of gold in Cali- 
fornia. As Chatham taught England how profitable it was to 
wage war with the right arm, at the same time that trade was 
carried on v/ith the left, so privateering was believed to furnish 
a gainful substitute for foreign commerce. Great Britain, 



30 PRIVATEERS. 

with immense commerce afloat, had no privateers. The United 
States, without public vessels to make head against the Eng- 
lish, had a hundred thousand sailors to cruise in privateers. 

It was mooted in Congress, and considered throughout the 
country, whether private armed vessels, which cost government 
no expense, were not the cheapest and most eflFective reliance 
for the war. The navy had nobly done all it could. Was it 
not wiser to lay it up, reposing on laurels, rather than expose 
it, and the laurels too, to extreme danger ? A hundred priva- 
teers, averaging only ten guns and sixty men each, would never 
fail to be at sea, intolerably harassing the enemy and teaching 
him the worth of peace by interrupting or destroying his com- 
merce. The modern tendency of freedom is to govern less and 
leave more to individual action. Volunteer systems, cheaper 
and safer than armies or navies, are apt to be preferred to the 
separate profession of arms. At all events, it was said, let a 
Bea-militia, like that on land, constitute part of the belligerent 
forces. Although British influence and pride decry privateers 
as piratical and odious, yet is not the principle of depredation 
the same, and the practice, too, between the private and the 
public vessel of war ? War is a trial which of two combatants 
can do the other most harm ; and why should those who depre- 
cate its brutalities dignify or endeavor to recommend them ? 
Why favor or respect more the ship-of-the-line, armed with a 
hundred guns, and manned with a thousand men, than the 
sloop whose sole armament is a single gun, and whose crew is 
but five-and-twenty men ? Depredation is the aim of both alike. 
According to a well-settled principle of war-law, every indivi- 
dual of each belligerent nation is at war with every individual 
of the other, and bound to do him all possible harm in person 
and property. 

Still there is a general aversion to privateers, as more like 
pirates than public vessels of war ; aversion natural to a great 
nation like the British, with immense commerce, obnoxious to 
private armed cruisers, and an immense navy to protect it ; 
whether it is so just an American antipathy might be ques- 
tioned. Yet in some parts it broke out in extreme prejudice. 



PRIVATEERS. 31 

Tlie New Bedford Mercury, published in 1814, contained 
the following : — 

"Mr. Lindsay is requested, by one of his subscribers, to insert in his paper 
that the doctor of the privateer Saratoga, now fitting' for a cruise at Fair- 
haven, applied, some days since, to several apothecaries of this place for a 
medicine chest, all of whom peremptorily refused supplying him with that 
article, or with any drugs or medicines for the use of the privateer." 

The writer, who signs himself "A Ship-owner," adds — 

" We think the gentlemen did themselves much credit, and we hope their 
example will be followed by the citizens of this place gcnerallji Let it be 
distinctly understood that privateers cannot obtain supplies of any kind at 
this place, and we shall no longer be infested with those nuisances. Let 
thcin fit and refit from that sink of corruption, the Sodom of our country, 
called Baltimore ; and not, by seeking refiige here, put in jeopardy our ship- 
ping and our town, and necessitate our yeomanry, at this busy season, to 
leave their farms uncultivated to defend our harbor, which, were it not a 
place of refuge for what has been emphatically denominated licensed pirates, 
would not need a soldier to ensure its safety." 

Surgeons being deemed non-combatants, and therefore not 
delivered as prisoners of Avar, medical and clerical comforts 
being allowed to felons, this New Bedford ebullition was less 
logical than disaffected. 

At all events, the British press, both colonial and metropo- 
litan, throughout that war, bore constant testimony to the 
humanity, generosity, courtesy and charity of American priva- 
teersmcn ; from whom the lords of the ocean received lessons 
in kindness to prisoners, as well as in courage toward foes. 
In numerous instances the thanks of vanquished Britons were 
published, acknowledging the kindness of their privateer vic- 
tors. In no instance, that I am aware of, was their cruelty or 
severity complained of, or censured by a press certainly not 
abstemious from American condemnation. In fact, the sea- 
rovers of that war were licentious British commanders of ships 
of the line and frigates, while American privateers were 
mostly models of legalized hostilities. Written confessions 
will appear, in this chapter, of systematised plunder, pillage 
and depredation by officers, some of them, then or since, British 
noblemen and admirals, to which American privateersmen never 



32 PRIVATEERS. 

degraded themselves. Unlawful British depredations on Ame- 
rican merchantmen provoked the war which armed the priva- 
teers. The British royal navy preyed on unarmed vessels, 
unjustly condemned in British courts, till resistance was at last 
roused ; and before peace was restored, by memorable, and as 
it were providential detection, a bundle of letters, found in the 
cabin of a vessel of the British royal navy, gallantly boarded 
and captured, just as the war ended, by an American privateer, 
betrayed undeniable proofs of scandalous British depravity. 

A few select instances of privateer hostilities will be all I 
shall inc<)rporate with this narrative. They will characterise 
the whole, which it would require a volume to recite. Ame- - 
rican and British newspapers abounded with their details. 
Every theatre of marine enterprise was occupied by them. 
From the blockaded and beleaguered coasts of the United 
States, in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the West Indies and the 
East, on the coasts of the whole globe, in every latitude and 
longitude, British vessels were surprised and subdued by Ame- 
rican privateers ; great numbers sent safely into port, some 
ransomed, others burned. Although combat was not the priva- 
teer's vocation, yet they seldom declined it when any thing ; 
like equal terms occurred ; and it was remarkably indicative 
of the confidence of the American seaman in his superiority, 
that he often fought when it was not indispensable, — fought 
for victory and glory as well as prize-money. 

The privateers rivalled the American, and surpassed the 
British navy in adventure. Cries of British commerce for pro- 
tection from American privateers were as loud and piercing as 
groans for naval defeats. The Jamaica press, in January, 
1814, announced that, thereafter, the British mails for the 
West Indies would be forwarded by men-of-war, in consequence 
of the frequent captures of royal mail packets with mails. 
There were, altogether, fourteen mail vessels captured, thi-ee 
by frigates, eleven by privateers. The packets were all armed, 
and tolerably well manned, fought their captors, and sometimes 
obstinately, particularly the royal packet Princess Amelia, 
which did not strike her flag till after stout resistance to the 
privateer Rossie, commanded by Barney. The packet Princess 



PRIVATEERS. 33 

Ellzalietli, after a sliarp contest, taken by tlie Harpy privateer, 
of Baltimore, and ransomed, had on board a Turkish ambas- 
sador, and some British navy officers. The packet Landraile 
was taken in the British Channel by the Syren, privateer of 
Baltimore. The transport buig Doris, No. 650, from Senegal, 
with soldiers, fine horses, a hyrena, jackal, and other wild 
beasts, presents for the Prince Regent, were captured by the 
Grampus privateer, of Baltimore. 

When a rendezvous was opened at Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, for the privateer America, 800 men presented themselves 
in the first hour to enlist for her ; the successful cruises of 
many privateers having excited a thirst for enterprise, distinc- 
tion and gain irrepressible. Nearly 300 British prisoners 
were taken into Boston, by privateers, within a few weeks ; 
and double that number, in the same time, were paroled at sea. 

On the 30th of September, 1814, it was posted at Lloyd's 
Cofiee-house, from a Paris newspaper of the 25th of that month, 
that " the True-blooded Yankee, American privateer, com- 
pletely refitted for sea, and manned with a crew of 200 men, 
sailed from Brest on the 21st, to cruise in the British channel, 
with orders to sink, burn and destroy, but not to capture in 
order to carry to port." 

" Liverpool, October 30th, 1814. A government vessel, laden 
with gunpowder, was chased into Wexford, a few days since, 
by an American privateer, which has prevented several vessels 
from sailing for that port." The privateer Comet, of Baltimore, 
cut several prizes out of the port of Tortola. The privateer 
True-blooded Yankee took possession of an island on the coast 
of Ireland, which she held for several days, burnt seven ves- 
sels in the harbor of a town in Scotland, and landed in France 
a large quantity of the richest booty, in various kinds of the 
finest merchandise. The privateer Tuckahoe, of Baltimore, 
was chased, Avithin a short period, by no less than eight dif- 
ferent British frigates, each of which she outsailed, or out- 
manccuvred. The West Indies swarmed with American pri- 
vateers, and numbers from French harbors cruised in the Bay 
of Biscay and the British Channel. Among the goods of the 
valuable prize brig Falcon, sent into Bath by the privateer 
Vol. IIL — 3 



34 PRIVATEERS. 

America, of Salem, were 900 Bibles and 300 New Testaments, 
in English and Dutch, forwarded by the British and Foreign 
Bible Society for distribution at the Cape of Good Hope, which 
the owners of the privateer, the Messrs. Crowninshield, sold 
at very low prices to the Bible Society of Massachusetts. The 
Scourge privateer, Captain Perry, of New York, cruising in 
the North Sea, captured, sent in, ransomed or burned so many 
prizes, that her prisoners amounted to 420 men. In company 
with the privateer Rattlesnake, Captain Moffat, of Philadelphia, 
the tonnage these two vessels took in the North Sea, exceeded 
4500 tons. On the 21st of July, 1814, the privateer Saucy 
Jack opened a rendezvous at Charleston, South Carolina, at 
eleven o'clock, for the enlistment of a crew ; and before five 
o'clock that afternoon, one hundred and twenty able-bodied 
full seamen were enlisted. The Midas privateer sailed from 
Savannah in search of the British privateer Dash, reported 
off that coast, having taken three coasters loaded with cotton, 
all four of which vessels, including the Dash and another vessel, 
the Astrea, captured by the Dash, which the Midas recaptured, 
she took into Savannah. The Countess of Harcourt, a large, 
richly laden, well manned and armed British East Indiaman, 
was taken by the Sabine privateer in the British Channel, and 
sent safe into port. Fourteen vessels were taken and burned 
in the British Channel by the privateer Governor Tompkins, 
of New York, after divesting the prizes of their valuable arti- 
cles. That method of preventing recapture was becoming 
common by both private and public cruisers, and proved a 
most effectual annoyance to the enemy. The privateer Kemp, 
of Baltimore, released one of her prizes, the brig New Fre- 
derick, bound from Smyrna to Hull, at the entreaty of an 
Italian lady, a passenger. The entry in the log of another 
privateer, after mentioning the particulars of an engagement 
and victory, was — " treated the prisoners like ourselves." A 
London paper of the 5th of August, 1814, reported, as ac- 
counts received at Lloyd's, for their lists of recent casualties, 
7 vessels captured by the United States' sloop-of-war Wasp ; 
2 by the United States' sloop-of-war Syren, and 99 by dif- 
ferent American privateers, whose reception and refitting in 



raiVATEERS. 35 

FrciKii ports was loudly complained of, after war liad ceased 
between England and France. The British coasts were said to 
be much vexed bj privateers, one of which burned, in Dublin 
Bay, a large ship from Bordeaux, laden with brandy. 

"London, September 3. — A list was, on Wednesday last, posted up at 
Lloyd's, containing a melancholy catalogue of no fewer than 825 ships 
which had been taken by the Americans since the commencement of the 
war. British vessels did not cross the Irish Channel without convoy. In- 
surance from London to Halifax was 30 guineas for 100." 

The Prince of Neufchatel, Captain Ordronneaux, of New York, 
with 33 men, including officers, at quarters, and 37 prisoners 
on board, was attacked near Nantucket by 5 boats of the En- 
dymion frigate, manned by 111 men and ojQficers, heavily 
armed, 33 of whom were killed, 37 wounded, and all the rest 
. 'aptured ; though several of them, boarding, gained the deck 
of the privateer, but were beat back. The Neufchatel arrived 
safe in Boston, laden with rich spoils from several vessels she 
took, most of them in the British and Irish channels. The pri- 
vateer Portsmouth, of Portsmouth, captured and sent in, after 
a cruise of 33 days, the ship James, of London, for Quebec, 
with dry-goods invoiced at .£100,000 sterling, and other prizes, 
the whole sales of which, for the little more than one month's 
cruise, yielded upwards of ^550,000. The privateer Chasseur, 
of Baltimore, Captain Boj^e, in a cruise of three months, took 
eighteen vessels, many of them large ships and brigs, with 
valuable cargoes, paroled 150 prisoners, carrying 43 into port 
with him ; and, while off the English coast, after many hair- 
breadth escapes, was once so near a frigate as to exchange 
broadsides with her. At another time she was nearly sur- 
rounded by two frigates and two man-of-war brigs — often 
chased, but easily out-manoeuvred them all ; though, by a ball 
from a frigate, she had three men wounded. Captain Boyle 
issued the following burlesque parody of Admiral Cochrane's 
proclamation, and by a cartel sent it to London, with orders to 
have it stuck up at Lloyd's Coffee-house. 

" By Thomas Buyle, Esq., commander of the private armed brig Chas- 
seur, <^c.. 
"Proclamation: — Wliereas it has become customary with the admirals 
of Great Britain, commanding small forces on the coast of the United States, 



36 PRIVATEERS. 

particularly with Sir John Borlase Warren and Sir Alexander Cochrane, 
to declare all the coast of the said United States in a state of strict and 
rigorous blockade, without possessing the power to justify such a declaration, 
or stationing an adequate force to maintain such blockade. 

" I do, therefore, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested (pos- 
sessing sufficient force), declare all the ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, 
inlets, outlets, islands and seacoast of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland in a state of rigorous blockade. And I do further declare that 
I consider the force under my command adequate to maintain strictly, 
rigorously and effectually, the said blockade. And I do hereby require the 
respective officers, whether captains, commanders, or commanding officers, 
under my command, employed or to be employed on the coast of England, 
Ireland and Scotland, to pay strict attention to the execution of this my 
proclamation. And I do hereby caution and forbid the ships and vessels of 
all and every nation, in amity and peace with the United States, from 
entering, or attempting to enter, or from coming, or attempting to come out 
of any of the said ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands, 
or seacoast, under any pretence whatsoever. And that no person may plead 
ignorance of this my proclamation, I have ordered the same to be made 
public in England. 

" Given under my hand, on board the Chasseur, day and date as above. 

« THOMAS BOYLE. 

"By command of the commanding officer. 

J. J. STRAUSBURG, Sec'y. 

The Chasseur was one of the best-built vessels afloat ; ex- 
cellent in her construction, equipment, armament, ofificers, and 
crew. Captain Boyle was one of those sagacious, intrepid, sober, 
cool and hardy sea-dogs of New England, who well deserve the 
eulogium of Burke, as the best seamen in the world. His 
blockade of Great Britain was no more unfounded than Coch- 
rane's proclaimed blockade of the United States ; nor could 
the maritime community have more practical and effective ex- 
posure of the monstrous assumption of England to exterminate 
commerce by fictitious prevention, than the actual ravages of 
that single privateer at the very ports of that country ; the losses 
and terrors of its merchants ; and the contemptuous ridicule by 
which an American privateersman tested the truth of British 
official assumption. 

Not only the best construction, seamanship, gunnery, and 
other naval requirements, were maintained on board privateers, 
but discipline, without which all martial effort is precarious, 



PRIVATEERS. 37 

was Avell preserved, as it may not be amiss to show, by the se- 
vere punishments adjudged in one instance, which will serve for 
all. The discipline, order, and morality of privateers were su- 
perintended, and rigidly maintained, according to the rules and 
regulations for the government of the navy, and enforced by 
its officers. The privateer Scourge was a public favorite from 
her enterprising performances. Cruising in the North Cape, 
she overhauled every vessel for Archangel, sending her prizes 
behind a chain of islands ; at the entrance of one of which the 
Captain of the Scourge repaired and supplied an old battery, 
strong enough to keep off cruisers. Danes took possession of, 
and conducted the prizes to Drontheim, so as not to reduce the 
crew of the Scourge, and Danes were hired to man the for- 
tress. Just before the war ended, a court-martial of naval 
officers, presided by Captain Charles Morris, at the navy-yard 
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the 10th of February, 1815, 
adjudged Jeremy S. Dickenson, first lieutenant of that pri- 
vateer, to imprisonment, incapacity of ever holding a commis- 
sion in the public or private-armed vessels of the United 
States ; and the forfeiture of his shares in the captui'es made 
by the Scourge, for negligence of duty, quarrelling, and pro- 
voking and reproachful menaces, mutinous and seditious con- 
duct. At the same time, the same court sentenced the boat- 
swain and three seamen of the Scom-ge to be flogged, and to 
forfeit their share of captures, for pillaging a neutral vessel, 
stopped by the Scourge for examination, and maltreating 
persons on board that vessel. The government of the United 
States exacted from privateers conduct in strong contrast with 
that of British naval officers. From the first of their predatory 
system ashore and at sea, begun by Admiral Cockburn at 
Havre de Grace and Frenchtown in 1813, continued through- 
out the coasts of this whole country, and completed by the 
kidnapping of slaves in Carolina and Georgia, no such repri- 
mand from the British government was ever heard of as that 
inflicted as abovementioned. 

Complaints from Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Lisbon, the 
West India Islands broke forth in loud censure of the govern- 
ment, for its inefficient protection of British commerce from 



38 PRIVATEERS. ^ : 

American privateers ; of wliicli some are here inserted, as 
indicative of their great impression. ^ 

■ *^ London, August 22. 
"American Privateers. — The Directors of the Royal Exchange and 
London Assurance Corporations, strongly impressed with the necessity for 
greater protection being afforded to the trade in consequence of the nume- 
rous captures, that have recently been made by American cruisers, repre- 
sented the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on Wednesday last, and 
on Saturday received answer, of which the following is a copy : 

'"Admiralty Office, August 19. 
" ' Sir, — Having laid before my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 
the letter of the 12th instant, signed by you and the Secretary of the London 
Assurance Corporations, on the subject of depredations committed by the 
American privateers therein mentioned, I am commanded by their Lordships 
to acquaint you that there was a force, adequate to the purpose of protecting 
the trade, both in St. George's Channel and the Northern Sea, at the time 
referred to. I am, &c., 

" ' J. W. CROKER.' " 

After giving the names of some vessels captured, the same 
paper adds — 

" Should the depredations on our commerce continue, the merchants and 
traders will not be able to get any insurance effected, except at enormous 
premiums, on vessels trading between Ireland and England, either by the 
chartered companies, or individual underwriters; and as a proof of this as- 
sertion, for the risks that are usually written 15s., 9 per cent., the sum of 5 
guineas is now demanded." 

"London, September 1. — It is the intention of the admiralty, in conse- 
quence of the numerous captures made by the Americans, to be extremely 
strict with the captains who quit their convoy at sea, or who, contrary to 
orders, sail without convoy. Prosecutions of masters of siiips, for neglect 
of this description, have already commenced, as will be seen by the subjoined 
extract of a letter : 

" 'Lloyd's, August 31, 1814. — The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 
have been pleased to inform the committee, that they have given directions 
to their solicitor to prosecute the masters of the following vessels, viz:'" 
[naming them.] 

AMERICAN PRIVATEERS. 

"The depredations of the American privateers on the coast of Ireland and 
elsewhere, have produced so strong a sensation at Lloyd's, that it is difficult 
to get policies underwritten at any rate of premium. 



PRIVATEERS. 39 

"Thirteen guineas for one hundred pounds has been paid to insure vessels 
across the Irish Channel; such a tiling never happened we believe before. 

"London, September 9. — At a meeting of merchants, ship-owners, &c., 
at Liverpool, to consider of a representation to government on tiie subject 
of the numerous captures made by American cruisers, Mr. Gladstone pro- 
posed an address to the Lords of the Admiralty; but after many severe 
observations that representations had been made to that department without 
redress, Mr. Clear proposed an address to the prince regent, which, after 
warm opposition on the part of Mr. Gladstone, was carried. The address 
conveys a censure upon the admiralty. Subsequently a counter address to 
the admiralty was voted at another meeting, to which Mr. Croker replied 
on the 3d inst., that an ample force had been under the command of the 
admirals commanding the western stations ; and that during the time when 
the enemy's depredations are stated to have taken place, not fewer than 
three frigates and fourteen sloops were actually at sea, for the immediate 
protection of St. George's Channel, and the western and northern parts cf 
t!ie United Kingdom. 

"Li the memorial of the merchants, &c., of Liverpool, to the admiralty, 
complaining of want of sufficient naval protection against American captures, 
tliey speak of privateers destroying vessels as a novel and extraordinary 
practice, which, they say they are informed, is promoted by pecuniary re- 
wards from the American government; and they wish measures adopted to 
prevent, as much as possible, the ruinous effects of this new system of war- 
fare. 

" At a very numerous meeting of the merchants, manufacturers, ship- 
owners, and underwriters, of the city of Glasgow, called by a public adver- 
tisement, and held by special requisition to the lord provost, on Wednesday, 
the 7th of September, 1814, the lord provost in the chair, it was 

^^Unanimously Resolved, That the number of American privateers with 
which our cliannels have been infested, the audacity with which they have 
approaclied our coasts, and tlie success with which their enterprise has been 
attended, have proved injurious to our commerce, humbling to our pride, and 
discreditable to the directors of the naval power of the British nation, whose 
flag, till of late, waved over every sea, and triumphed over every rival. 

" That there is reason to believe, in the short space of less than twenty- 
four months, above eight hundred vessels have been captured by the power 
wiiose maritime strength we have hitiierto impolitically held in contempt. 

" That, at a time wlien we are at peace with all the rest of the world, 
when the maintenance of our marine costs so large a sum to the country, 
when the mercantile and shipping interests pay a tax for protection under 
the form of convoy duty, and when, in the plenitude of our power, we have 
declared the whole American coast under blockade, it is equally distressing 
and mortifying, that our ships cannot with safety traverse our own chamiels; 
that in.>urance cannot be effected but at an excessive premium ; and tiiat a 
horde of American cruisers should be allowed unlieeded, unresisted, unmo- 



40 PRIVATEERS. 

lested, to take, burn, or sink our own vessels, in our own inlets, and almost 
in sigiit of our own harbors. 

» That the ports of the Clyde have sustained severe loss from the depre- 
dations already committed, and that there is reason to apprehend still more 
serious suffering, not only from the extent of the coasting trade, and the 
numbers yet to arrive from abroad, but as the time is fast approaching when 
the outward-bound ships must proceed to Cork for convoys, and when, during 
the winter season, the opportunities of the enemy will be increased, both to 
capture with ease and escape with impunity. 

" That the system of burning and destroying every article which there is 
fear of losing, a system pursued by all the cruisers, and encouraged by tlieir 
own government, diminishes the chances of recapture, and renders the ne- 
cessity of prevention more urgent. 

"That from the coldness and regret with which previous remonstrances 
from other quarters have been received by the admiralty, this meeting re- 
luctantly feel it an imperious duty at once to address the throne, and there- 
fore, tiiat a petition be forwarded to his Royal Highness, the prince regent, 
acting in the name and on behalf of his majesty, representing the above 
grievances, and humbly praying that his Royal Highness will be graciously 
pleased to direct such measures to be adopted as shall promptly and effectu- 
ally protect the trade on the coasts of this kingdom from the numerous in- 
sulting and destructive depredations of the enemy; and that the lord provost 
be requested to transmit the said petition accordingly," 

The merchants of St. Vincents sent a memorial to Admiral 
Dm-ham, stating that the privateer Chassem* had blockaded 
them for five days, doing them much damage, and requesting 
that he would send them at least a heavy sloop of w^ar ; where- 
upon he sent them the Barrosa frigate, in eftecting his escape 
from which frigate, Captain Boyle was obliged to throve some 
of his guns overboard, 

A London newspaper, published the 16th of January, 1815, 
the following: 

" The American privateers, which have caused our commerce to suffer so 
much, have had, for a long time, secret intelligence with two of the ports on 
the Irish coast. The number of their prizes proves the use they have made 
of their information, and accounts for the inefficiency of the measures taken 
by the admiralty." 

Another London publication, of the 20th of January, 1815, 
stated that " letters from Lisbon, of the 30th of December, 
announce that the American privateers commit great depreda- 
tions on the coast of that kingdom. They were uneasy about 



PRIVATEERS. 41 

tlic fate of one of our sloops-of-war near Cape St. Vincents, in 
a hard battle Avith one of the American privateers." 

Besides seamanship, enterprise and gallantry, privateers — 
some of them even more than the public vessels of war — deve- 
loped another superiority in that contest. They were mostly 
better built than the British vessels. When Nelson, in 1801, 
surveyed the build, the rig, the trim, and the manoeuvres, 
altogether, of the first American squadron that entered the 
Mediterranean, his prediction of transatlantic naval prowess 
was a fact, as I have been assured by respectable authority. 
[Vol. I. p. 362]. The American ships were well handled, he 
said. From the heights of Gibraltar, the great portal of en- 
trance between the old world and the new, marine experts of 
all nations perceived that American republican ships were more 
gracefully shaped, more agile, and swifter of movement, as 
they competed with the English, French, Dutch, Italian, and 
other vessels, in vain striving to surpass them. The American 
vessel was as easily recognised by her canvass, her hull, her 
masts, and her march upon the waves, as by her flag or sig- 
nals. The nationality was obvious. From the time when Co- 
lumbus and Americus, in clumsy shallops, passed those straits, 
till one of the largest steam-frigates of the world, the Missouri, 
Avas burned and buried there, the model, size, force, motive- 
power and armament of ships, both mercantile and naval, have 
been constantly progressive, and those of this countr}" emulous 
to be behind no others. Navigated by freemen, much more 
subordinate and better disciplined than Turkish slaves, Ameri- 
can vessels have always compared favorably with others ; while 
British and American emulation has, without hostilities, stimu- 
lated both of these free nations to incessant endeavours for su- 
perior excellence. In the war of 1812, appeared those low 
black schooners, Avith tall raking masts, and wonderful facility 
of evolution, called Baltimore clippers, some of Avhose cruises 
and performances are mentioned in this chapter. Minduig the 
helm as if understanding its orders, sailing close-hauled upon a 
Avind, those sea-racers, or skimmers of the sea, distanced oppo- 
nents, played round enemies Avith audacious ease, broke block- 
ades, out and in again, cut prizes out of fleets and fortified 



42 PRIVATEERS, 

ports, performed rapid and distant voyages, blockaded, captured, 
burned and destroyed, or ransomed — executed admirably every 
act of naval belligerency. Since their day, the American 
pilot-boat, and finally the ocean-steamer, have maintained the 
progressive advancement, of which the Baltimore clipper Avas 
an early and remarkable edition. For it is one of those in- 
explicable circumstances, of which human events are contin- 
ually furnishing new proofs, that the British navy succeeded^ 
in driving all others from the sea without excelling in ship- 
building. The wooden walls of England were not more im- 
pregnable than those of Holland, France or Denmark. British 
crews had the talisman of British superiority. French ships 
are said to be better constructed than English. French arma- 
ment is at least equal. It enhances the naval merit of the 
British tar, that he vanquished the Dutch and the French at 
sea, without being on board a finer vessel, or with superior 
armament. The Baltimore clipper, the American pilot-boat/ 
the sea-steamer, and the pleasure-yacht, have all successively 
borne testimony that, in the construction and navigation of ves- 
sels, the builders of this country are not excelled. Nor is it 
inconsiderable testimony of the value of the efforts, mechanical 
as well as marine, elicited by the struggle of 1812 with the 
mighty naval power of Great Britain, that a navy, the steam- 
boat, the clipper ship — all branches of marine advancement — 
were among its developments. Since then the contest with the 
mother country has never ceased or relented; not in arms, 
with bloodshed, or often with anger, but as the wholesome 
emulation of free and kindred people, vying with each other in 
the useful arts and advantages of civilized refinements. ) 

Many more brilliant particulars of privateer exploits might 
be added to the few herein mentioned, teeming with adven- 
turous cruises, rich captures, gallant actions, courteous and 
humane deportment, and altogether romantic achievements. 
But enough have been sketched to characterise the whole ; and 
this chapter will be closed with particulars of two of the most 
remarkable of sea-fights ; one of which superinduced important 
political results after the peace ; and the other records disgraceful 
disclosures of the British navy, taken from it by a privateer. 



x; PRIVATEERS. 43 

Tlie privateer schobner General Armstrong, mounting eight 
long nine-pound cannons, witli one twenty-four pound gun on 
a pivot, and a crew of ninety men and officers, commanded hy 
Captain Akiiwwter C. Reid, sailed from New York, then block- 
aded, the 9th of September, 1814, on a cruise, which, after 
only nineteen days at sea, ended at Fayal, the port of one of 
the Portuguese islands of Azore. Captain Reid, on the 2Gth 
of September, put in there for water. The American Consul, 
John B. Dabney, facilitated the supply, which was hastily 
shipped, in order that the schooner might sail again next 
morning. Some anxiety was felt, lest any British cruisers 
should appear, and disregard, as they often did, Portuguese 
neutrality, when Portugal and England were so closely allied, 
that Portugal was protected from France by England. In the 
evening, Mr. Dabney and a party of gentlemen were enter- 
tained on board the privateer. The American consul was 
quieting Captain Reid's uneasiness by assurances that the 
neutrality of the port would undoubtedly protect his vessel, 
when a British brig-of-war, the Carnation, hove in sight, with 
a favorable breeze for entering the port, where the privateer 
was becalmed. 

"While Captain Reid was hastily considering whether he 
would attempt to elude the possibility of British molestation 
by putting to sea, the Plantagenet ship-of-the-line. Captain 
Lloyd, and the Rota frigate, Captain Somerville, came in view, 
to which vessels the Carnation made signals, which became fre- 
quent betAveen them and the Carnation. As soon as the Carna- 
tion had been apprised by the pilot that there was an American 
privateer in the roads, the British vessel hauled close in to the 
Armstrong, and anchored within pistol-shot of her. Of a clear 
moonlight night, in that transparent climate, when every thing 
was plainly discernible, the Carnation got all her boats out 
and sent a message to the Commodore, Avliich suspicious indica- 
tions, induced Captain Reid to warp his vessel close to the 
shore, by sweeps, and to clear for action. As soon as the 
Carnation perceived that movement, her cable was cut, sail 
was made on her, and four boats were despatched towards the 
privateer. About eight o'clock in the evening, as the boats 



44 PKIVATEERS. 

advanced, Captain Reid dropped his anchor, got springs on 
his cable, and prepared for an apprehended attack. As the 
boats approached in dread silence, pulling toward the priva- 
teer, with every appearance of a design to attack the Ameri- 
can, thej were again and again hailed by Captain Reid, and 
warned to keep off. Largely manned, and formidably armed, 
they pushed on till they got close alongside. The Americans 
then fired. The British returned the fire, killed a seaman on 
board the privateer, and wounded her first lieutenant, Frede- 
rick A. Worth. But roughly repulsed, with twenty of their 
people killed and wounded, and the rest crying for quarter, 
the boats hastily retreated; and thus ended the first act of 
a desperate and bloody tragedy, afterwards renewed by the 
British, and continued all night. 

The privateer certainly fired first, and drew the first blood. 
But who Tv-as the aggressor, became a question which is not yet 
determined. Truth, always difficult of ascertainment, is hardly 
ever discovered by human testimony when passions are excited 
by bloodshed between armed foes. The English version was, that, 
when the Carnation found the Armstrong in the harbor, she 
sent a boat with a lieutenant and a flag to learn the privateer's 
force ; that the tide, running strong, drifted the boat to the 
schooner, then getting under way ; that it was impossible for 
the boat to keep off when hailed and warned to do so, because 
the schooner had so much stern-way on her ; whereupon the 
privateer fired, and killed seven men in the boat. 

Whoever was aggressor, exasperated hostilities were then 
resolved upon. The British commodore, Lloyd, indignant at 
what he denounced as aggression, by gross breach of neutrality, 
resolved to take exemplary vengeance at once, and at all 
hazards, ordered the Carnation to move in and destroy the pri- 
vateer. But as the wind was light and variable, the brig made 
signals to the Plantagenet and the Rota for boats, to tow in 
the Carnation. Nine boats, manned with two hundred men, 
commanded by three lieutenants, were accordingly despatched 
for that purpose ; but not being able, by reason of rocks, to 
tow the brig in as directed, the boats proceeded, themselves, to 
destroy the privateer. Such is the British statement. 



PRIVATEERS. 45 

Wlictlier assailant or (lefcudant, Captain Reid, seeing that 
active measures were taking for his destruction, hauled his 
scliooner close in to the shore, moored her within pistol-shot 
of the castle, and made preparations for the encounter, which 
he, too, was resolved should be desperate. The Portuguese 
governor and inhabitants, the consuls, American and Eng- 
lish, and large numbers of spectators, lined the banks to wit- 
ness what threatened to be an exciting conflict. After the 
British had combined their forces, said to amount to 400 men, 
picked from the three vessels, in twelve boats, armed with car- 
ronades, swivels, blunderbusses, muskets, cutlasses and board- 
ing pikes, the Carnation under weigh, in order to prevent the 
privateer's escape, should it be attempted — all the preliminary 
movements for attack were made ready. The moon shone bright, 
the air was calm, expectation breathless — the combatants, on 
both sides, still as death. The privateer's men, all night at 
quarters, in perfect quiet, awaited the onset. At midnight, 
all the British preparations being completed, the boats, in close 
order and in one direct line, pulled for their stations, close 
alongside the privateer. No attempt was made to prevent 
their approach. With perfect self-possession, Captain Reid, 
his officers and men, reserving their fire till the enemy was 
almost at the mouths of their guns, then poured in a terrible dis- 
charge, which stunned their assailants. But, after a short pause 
and reconnoissance, the British cheered, returned the fire, and, 
bravely grappling with their foes, endeavored to board the 
schooner. At the order to board and give no quarter, they 
clambered up the bow and sides, with unwavering efibrts 
striving to reach the decks. A furious conflict ensued, 
hand to hand, with pikes, swords, pistols and muskets. The 
privateer's second lieutenant, Alexander 0. "Williams, was 
killed ; and the third lieutenant, Robert Johnson, together 
with the quarter-master, Barsillai Hammond, disabled by 
wounds, — Captain Reid the only officer left unhurt. Dur- 
ing forty minutes of raging conflict, the eighty odd Ame- 
ricans, with the advantage of the deck, constantly repulsed 
several hundred British, defeating all their attempts to board. 
Of the British, by their own account, more than half were 



46 PRIVATEERS. 

killed or wounded, tliat is, 167 ; but, according to other esti- 
mates, about one-fourth of them. Two of the Rota's boats. 
laden with dead, were abandoned by the seventeen survivors, 
who escaped by swimming ashore. Three of the Rota's lieu- 
tenants, Bowerbank, Coswell .and Rogers, with 38 of her sea- 
men, were killed, and 83 wounded. The first, fourth and fifth 
lieutenants of the Plantagenet, and 22 of her sailors, were 
killed, and 24 wounded. The slaughter was dreadful. At 
the famous battle off St. Vincents, which conferred that title, 
with an earldom, on Admu-al Jervis, after an engagement 
with a Spanish fleet, which lasted a whole day, all the British 
killed were 73, and all the wounded, 227. Such comparisons 
infer the conclusion that some of the greatest British naval 
victories were gained with inconsiderable loss, and much less 
achievement than is attributed by a public policy, which may 
not be unwise, but of which conflicts with American mariners 
rent the veil and exposed the reality. 

There were moments, during the last forty minutes of furious 
encounter, when the issue was extremely doubtful. Several 
of the privateer's men went ashore ; and all the oflicers, ex- 
cept the captain, were killed or wounded. But Captain Reid 
never lost his stern composure. The men who went ashore took 
their stand on rocks, and continued to fire from them ; those 
on the deck shouted defiance to their sturdy foes, and at last 
drove them away with amazing destruction. 

After the surviving British, so terribly worsted, retired to 
their shipping, at two o'clock at night the American consul 
appealed to the Portugese governor to interfere with the British 
commanding ofiicer, and assert the neutrality of the port against 
further violation. Several houses had been damaged, and 
persons wounded by the British fire. The governor, therefore, 
sent to the commodore, entreating him to desist from such 
violence. But Captain Lloyd, smarting under his losses, which 
deprived the Rota alone of seventy of her best men and ofiicers, 
and exasperated by a resistance which he did not expect, and 
was resolved to punish, not only peremptorily refused to stop 
hostilities, but declared that he would take the privateer if he 
had to lay the whole town in ashes. Furthermore, he gave 



PRIVATEERS. 47 

the governor notice that the British commander held him re- 
sponsible, that his revenge should not be disappointed by letting 
the privateers-men destroy their vessel. If that was done, 
Commodore Lloyd would consider Fayal an enemy's place, and 
treat it accordingly. 

After the commodore's rejection, with these threats, of the 
governor's request, at three o'clock in the morning the consul 
apprised Captain Reid that he had nothing to expect from that 
intervention, and it became certain that the schooner would be 
destroyed or captured. The captain then went on board of 
her for the last time, had the dead and wounded removed, told 
the crew to save whatever they could, and made preparations 
for destroying the schooner. At day-light the Carnation stood 
in close to the Armstrong, and opened a fire upon her. But 
it was so warmly returned, that the British brig soon drew off 
much injured, and sent her boats to do the work. Captain 
Reid's vessel being also injured, and his best gun dismounted, he 
scuttled her before the boats boarded, and with his people Avent 
ashore. The boats' crews set her on fire, and the privateer 
was burned. Two days afterwards two more British war brigs, 
the Thais and the Calypso, arrived at Fayal ; by each of which 
twenty-five of the worst wounded were sent to England. 

An English resident of Fayal, in a letter to Cobbett, pub- 
lished by him the 14th of October, 1814, thus described the 
closing scenes of that encounter : 

" When they got within clear gunshot, a tremendous and effectual dis- 
charge was made from the privateer, whicli threw the boats into confusion. 
They now returned the fire ; but the privateer kept up so continual a dis- 
charge, it was almost impossible for the boats to make any progress. They 
finally succeeded, after immense loss, in getting alongside of her, and 
attempted to board at every quarter, cheered by the officers with a shout of 
'No quarter!' which we could distinctly hear, as well as their shrieks and 
cries. The termination was near about a total massacre. 

" Three of the boats were sunk, and but one poor solitary officer escaped 
death, in a boat that contained fifty souls; lie was wounded. The Americans 
fought with great firmness; some of the boats were left without a single 
man to row them; others with three or four; the most that any one returned 
with was about ten; several boats floated on siiore full of dead bodies. 

"With great reluctance I state that they were manned with picked men, 
and counuanded by the first, second, third, and fourth lieutenants of the 



48 PEIYATEERS. 

Plantagenet; first, second, third, and fourth do. of tlie frigate; and the first 
officers of the brig, together with a great number of midshipmen. Our 
whole force exceeded 400 men ; but three officers escaped, two of whom are 
wounded. Tiiis bloody and unfortunate contest lasted about forty minutes. 

"After the boats gave out, nothing more was attempted till daylight ne.xt 
morning, when the Carnation hauled alongside and engaged her. The pri- 
vateer still continued to make a most gallant defence. These veterans 
reminded me of Lawrence's dying words of the Chesapeake, 'Don't give 
up the ship !' The Carnation lost one of her topmasts, and her yards were 
shot away ; she was much cut up in her rigging, and received several shots 
in her hull. This obliged her to haul off to repair, and to cease her firing. 

"The Americans now finding their principal gun (long Tom) and several 
others dismounted, deemed it folly to think of saving her against so superior 
a force ; they therefore cut away her masts to the deck, blew a hole through 
her bottom, took out their small arms, clothing, &c., and went on shore. I 
discovered only two shot-holes in the hull of the privateer, though much cut 
up in rigging. 

" Two boats' crews were afterwards despatched from our vessels, which 
went on board, took out some provisions, and set her on fire. 

" For three days after, we were employed in burying the dead that washed 
on shore in the surf. The number of British killed exceeds one hundred 
and twenty, and ninety wounded. The enemy, (the Americans) to the sur- 
prise of mankind, lost only two killed and seven wounded. We may well 
say 'God deliver us from our enemies,' if this is the way the Americana 
fight. 

"After burning the privateer. Captain Lloyd made a demand of the go- 
vernor to deliver up the Americans as prisoners — which was refused. He 
threatened to send five hundred men on shore, and take them by force. The 
Americans immediately retired with their arms to an old Gothic convent, 
knocked away the adjoining drawbridge, and determined to defend them- 
selves to the last. The captain, however, thought better than to send his 
men. He then demanded two men, which he said deserted from his vessel 
when in America. The governor sent for his men, but found none of the . 
description given. 

"Many houses received much injury, on shore, from the guns of the Car- 
nation. A woman, sitting in the fourth story of her house, had her thigh 
shot off; and a boy had his arm broken. The American Consul here has 
made a demand on the Portuguese government for a hundred thousand dollars, 
for the privateer; which our Consul, Mr. Parkin, thinks, in justice, will be 
paid, and that they will claim on England. Mr. Parkin, Mr. Edward Bay- 
ley, and other English gentlemen, disapprove of the outrage and depredation 
committed by our vessels on this occasion. The vessel (a ship-of-war) that 
was despatched to England with the wounded, was not permitted to take a 
single letter from any person. Being an eye-witness to this transaction, I 
have given you a correct statement as it occurred." 



PRIVATEERS. 49 

Captain Relcl reduced to writing a full statement of this 
transaction in a protest before the Consul, Dabney. The Por- 
tuguese authorities strongly condemned the conduct of the 
British ; and the matter has been, ever since, the subject of 
demand by the American government against that of Portugal 
for indemnity. Latterly it has been involved in some difficulty 
by positive accounts of British deponents that the Americans 
were alone to blame as aggressors ; and by umpirage, indica- 
tive of the strange vicissitudes in human affairs. Mr. Daniel 
Webster, as Secretary of State of these United States, after 
controversy with the Portuguese government, involving some 
British testimony, feeling and influence, has, by arrangement 
with Portugal, referred the matter to the arbitrement of the 
French republican government. Thus Napoleon's nephew and 
his ministers will determine a question with which my narra- 
tive need not deal, as it is confined to the conflict without close 
regard to the disputed aggression. 

On his return home. Captain Reid, arriving at Savannah, 
and travelling north, was welcomed and feted as one of 
our naval heroes. At Richmond, particularly, he was honored 
by a public entertainment, attended by the Governor and 
other distinguished Virginians. Andrew Stephenson, Speaker 
of the Virginia House of Delegates, presided. Among the 
toasts were, " The privateer cruisers of the United States, 
whose intrepidity pierced the enemy's channels and braved the 
lion in his den." "Barry and Boyle, and their compatriots, 
who have ploughed the ocean in search of the enemy, and 
hurled retaliation on his head." The Vice-President, William 
Wirt's toast was, " The memory of the General Armstrong ; 
she has graced her fall, and made her ruin glorious." Ken- 
tucky, without a seaport or seaman, but uniformly ardent in 
support of the war, addressed, through her patriotic governor, 
Shelby, a letter to Captain Reid, dated Frankfort, May 8th, 
1815, in which the venerable hero of two wars strongly and 
cordially made known his own and his fellow-citizens' senti- 
ments on a conflict "Avhich," he said, "placed the American cha- 
racter in a prouder view than any other during the war. We 
are not less indebted," added Governor Shelby trulj', "to the 
Vol. III. — 4 



50 PRIVATEERS. 

officers and crews of our private armed vessels than to the navy 
for the rich harvest of glory we have found on the ocean, where 
we had much to dread. Instances of talents, skill, discipline, 
and of determined, unconquerable bravery, have been mani- 
fested by our privateersmen. Though I have no reason to be- 
lieve that the nation is not fully impressed with the gratitude 
due to this class of heroes, yet I have regretted that there have 
been so few demonstrations of that sentiment." From an 
inland state, such applause and encouragement were as ge- 
nerous as just. 

To complete the sketch of privateer hostilities, it remains to 
contrast the gallantry and chivalry of private with the ignoble 
depredations of public vessels of war ; undeniably proved by 
scandalous confessions of British naval officers, captured, as 
the war closed, in a vessel of the royal navy, which struck her 
flag to an American privateer of inferior force. 

Soon after peace, but when the treaty still allowed certain 
hostilities by sea, on the 20th of March, 1815, the privateer 
Chasseur, of Baltimore, Captain Thomas Boyle, returned there 
from a successful cruise in the West Indies, with a full cargo 
of dry-goods, and sundry other valuable articles, taken from 
three British captured ships. On the 26th of February, 
1815, off Havana, after a sharp action of eight minutes, 
within pistol-shot. Captain Boyle subdued the British war- 
schooner St. Lawrence, commanded by Lieutenant James R. 
Gordon, of the royal navy, with a crew of seventy-five men, 
besides a number of soldiers, marines and naval officers, on 
their way from Cockburn's squadron to inform Cochrane's 
fleet, off New Orleans, of peace, of which Lieutenant Gor- 
don carried the account. The British vessel, of greater force 
than the American, had 15 killed and 23 wounded ; the 
privateer, 5 killed and 8 wounded. No action, throughout the 
whole war, told more emphatically American nautical supe- 
riority in seamanship, bravery, gunnery, and, above all, gen- 
tlemanly humanity. The English schooner concealed her men 
and force to surprise the American, and when close aboard, 
opened a whole tier of guns, which threw broadsides twice as 
heavy as the privateer's. But after a very few minutes of the 



PRIVATEERS. 51 

fiercest fire, just when Captain Boyle ordered his men to board, 
and his prize-master, Mr. W. N. Christie, actually got on board 
the enemy, her flag was struck, and she was found to be a com- 
plete wreck, her hull and rigging cut to pieces, and every 
officer either killed or wounded. Thus disabled, at the en- 
treaty of her acting commander, the British vessel was sent by 
Captain Boyle as a flag of truce to carry the wounded into 
Havana, Lieutenant Locke leaving with his captor a written 
statement, addressed to British commanders as what it termed 
" a tribute justly due to the humane and generous treatment 
of himself and the surviving officers and crew of his Britannic 
Majesty's late schooner, the St. Lawrence, by Captain Boyle, 
whose obliging attention and watchful solicitude to preserve 
the effects of the vanquished, and render them comfortable, 
justly entitle him to the respect and attention of every 
British subject." 

C>utdoing the royal British navy in gallantry and humanity, 
that capture detected undeniable evidence that plunder was a 
principal stimulant to British naval enterprise, and depredation 
its daily sustenance. The St. La^n-ence, sailing express from 
Cockburn's detachment of the enemy's fleet to Cochrane's, 
charged with many letters from the former to the latter, which, 
in the hurry and consternation of their capture, the bearers 
had neither time nor self-possession to destroy. Those dis- 
gusting documents, found in the cabin of the St. Lawrence, 
betrayed admirals, nobles, gentlemen and knights engaged in 
paltry rapine, and extensive devastations. War lawfully entitles 
victors to spoils. Acquisition of wealth by conquest induces 
exploits, and is their legitimate reward. But the predatory sys- 
tem of the British in this country was contrary to recognised 
regulations of hostility. One of the letters taken in the St. 
Lawrence was from Admiral Cockburn to Captain Evans, 
dated Head-Quarters, Cumberland Island, February 11th, 
1815, which, after deploring the defeat at New Orleans, adds, 
" We have been more fortunate here, in our small way. We 
have taken St. Mary's, a tolerably rich place, and with little 
loss have managed to do much damage to the enemy, and we 
are noAV in tolerable security, on a large fertile island in Geor- 



52 BRITISH BUCCANEERING. 

gia, though an ngly account of peace being signed (the par- 
ticulars of which I have sent to Sir Alexander Cochrane), 
seems to promise a speedy dismissal to us from this coast." 
Cockburn's regret at peace and his haste to anticipate it, when 
apprehended, by extensive plunder, by his last incursion, by 
confessions of his officers, was shamefully unworthy the navy 
of which he was a distinguished chief. From a fleet of tAvo 
74-gun ships, four frigates, and several transports, between 
one and two thousand land-troops, black and white, early in 
January, 1815, landed under Cockburn at Cumberland Island, 
Georgia, there to repeat the excesses of those freebooters on 
the shores of the Chesapeake. Cochrane having failed by his 
proclamation to excite the slaves to revolt, the alternative was 
to kidnap, as booty, as many as possible. At St. Simons, 
Cockburn captured 551 of that uncommon plunder, Avhich, 
after peace was established, he and Admiral Cochrane, officially 
called upon, refused to restore ; and subsequent negotiations, 
treaty, and Russian umpirage, became necessary to get indem- 
nity for them. 

As Cockburn overcame General Ross's scruples against 
venturing to Washington by inducements of pillage, so other 
letters, taken in the St. Lawrence, show that while conquest 
was the pretext, plunder was the rabid purpose of his landing 
in Georgia : British officers, naval and military, speculating 
like pedlers on their gains by unlawful means. 

J. R. Glover's letter to Captain Westphall of the Anaconda, 
dated Head-Quarters, Cumberland Island, February 1, 1815, 
stated — 

"We have established our head-quarters here, after ransacking St. Mary's, 
from which we brought property to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, and 
had we two thousand troops we might yet collect a good harvest before ^eace 
takes place. My forebodings will not allow me to anticipate eitlier honor 
or profit to the expedition of which you form a part, and I much fear the 
contrary, yet most fervently I hope my forebodings may prove groundless. 
The admiral (Cockburn) is as active as ever, and success in general attends 
his undertakings." 

The admiral's last successful undertaking, estimated by this 
follower at fifty thousand pounds, was the plunder of human 



BRITISH EUCCANEERIXG. 53 

beings. In tlie short interval to elapse between the ugly ac- 
count of peace lie deprecated and its ratification, Cockburn had 
no idea of legitimate hostilities, but of pillage. Not long after 
his first ignoble depredations in Maryland, in the spring of 
1813, the High-Flyer British tender was captured by the Pre- 
sident frigate, in which prize were found Cockburn's own 
minutes of his own piratical notions of naval warfare. When 
his marauding began at the head of the Chesapeake, the cha- 
racter of his landing and conduct at Frenchtown was thus 
registered in his log-book entry, dated April 29, 1813 : 

" The expedition returned, after having effected its purpose, carried a five- 
gun battery, and destroyed the town, landed the marines, and got a stock of 
bullocks off. 

"April 30. — Employed during the day in taking bullocks down to the 
Maidstone (frigate.) 

"May 1. — Employed carrying bullocks down to the Maidstone. 

" May 3. — Weighed and stood into Havre de Grace, to support the boats 
destined on the attack, under Rear-Admiral Cockburn. * * * Burnt 
the town, and proceeded to destroy a cannon foundry on the coast. * * * 
At sunset the boats returned jvith a good share of plunder. 

" May 5. — At sunset weighed and stood up the Sassafras river, to protect 
the boats in the attack on Georgetown and Fredericktown. 

"May G. — The boats returned after a total destruction of the two 
towns." 

Havi'e de Grace was an insignificant, unarmed village ; 
Frenchtown, Georgetown, and Fredericktown, small unarmed 
hamlets, paraded as Admiral Cockbm-n's conquests, " totally de- 
stroyed;" whose hostilities, from the first, in 181S, as described 
by himself, to the last, in 1815, were not civilised or legitimate 
warfare. His first official report to Admiral Warren, the 29th 
of April, 1813, giving an account of his attack on Frenchtown 
— where there were but three houses — stated the destruction 
of five vessels near that place. His second, the 3d of May, 
1813, after his petty depredations of Havre de Grace, avowed 
his unwarrantable system to punish resistance — not merely to 
overcome, but punish it. "Setting fire," he said, "to some of 
the houses, to cause the proprietors who had deserted them and 
formed part of the militia who fled to the woods, to understand 
and feci what they are liable to bring upon themselves by build- 



54 BRITISH BUCCANEERING. 

ing batteries, and acting towards us with so mucli useless rancor. 
The boats sent up the Susquehannah, destroyed five boats and a 
flour store." At Georgetown and Fredericktown, his third 
report stated that the whole of those towns were destroyed in 
consequence of much resistance, " except the houses of those 
who remained peaceably in them, and took no part against us." 
At Havre de Grace, one of his trophies taken from the residence 
of Commodore Rogers, was his sword, perhaps law^ful prize — 
though retaken — and his carriage, which was sm'cly unmanly 
spoliation by one sea-oiEcer of another, though an enemy. 

Depredation was the system of the British navy in the Ame- 
rican waters. Captain Epsworth, of the Nymph frigate, exacted 
fifty dollars from a fishing-smack, as ransom for letting the un- 
ofiending fisherman go. Captain Lloyd, of the Plantagenet 
ship-of-the-line, (whom we have seen at Fayal,) captured a 
vessel which was carrying an organ for an Episcopal church in 
New York, and would not release the prize till paid two thou- 
sand dollars ransom for the organ. 

One of the letters taken by the Chasseur on board the St. 
Lawrence was from Captain Napier, of the Euryalus frigate, to 
Captain Gordon, of the Seahorse, as follows : 

"Off Cape Henry, June 24, 1814. 
" Here I am, in Lynnhaven Bay, the clippers sailing every day, and 
losing them for want of fast sailers. All our prizes are well disposed of 
I have had a good deal to do with them, and not many thanks, as you may 
suppose, from the agents. I have petitioned the Prince Regent in belialf of 
the whole of us for a good slice of prize-money, and hope to succeed. You, 
I suppose, will not be displeased at it. Excuse this hasty scrawl, — I am in 
a d d bad humor, having just returned from an unsuccessful chase." 

Captains Gordon and Napier commanded the Seahorse and 
Euryalus frigates, which pillaged Alexandria. Napier has 
since commanded the British Channel fleet ; and lately made 
himself more than supremely ridiculous by impertinent solicita- 
tion for the command of the Mediterranean fleet. 

A letter taken in the St. Lawrence, dated February 19 th, 
1815, Cumberland Island, from J. Gallon to J. O'Reilly, on 
board H. M. ship Tonnant, off New Orleans, ran thus : 

" We have had fine fun since I saw you. What with the Rappahannock, 



BRITISH BUCCANEERING. 55 

and otiier places, we have contrived to pick up a few trifling things, such 
as mahogany tables, chests 0/ drawers, t^c." 

Two Others of the captured letters were as follows : 

"From Colonel Malcolm to Rear- Admiral Malcolm. 

"Cumberland Island, 5th February, 181.5. 
"I received your letter of the .5th ultimo; it is written before your last 
attack on the place, but I most sincerely hope you will ultimately succeed. 
From all accounts, New Orleans is not strong. The enemy will have a 
new confidence in themselves from their success. What a disappointment 
it will be, in England, should you fail ! The chance of failure has not been 
calculated on; and, from the force employed, it has been made too sure from 
the tirst. I have no opinion of either tiie Indians or black new-raised corps; 
the former, in this country, carry on a most furious war ; murder and deso- 
lation mark their track; there is no hope but flying or resistance to the last 
moment of life; this is what every one says of the Florida Indians. Of 
course the inhabitants, of all descriptions, would fear to come near you. 
There is a report here that neither the 21st or 44th regiment behaved well — 
but as a report I treat it. I should be sorry to hear two British regiments 
slurred in an attack." 

"From Colonel Malcolm to Rear-Admiral Malcolm. 

" Cumberland Island, 11th February, 1815. 
" I hope we may hear from you in a short time, and of your success 
against the place you are now before (New Orleans) — It will repay the 
troops for their trouble and fatigues ! I do not expect, either war or peace, 
that we will move from this island this winter : if war goes on, a garrison 
must be left here in charge of the island." 

Sir Thomas Cochrane, of the Surprise frigate, wrote to 
Captain Pigot, oiF New Orleans, dated Cumberland Island, 
February 12th, 1815 : 

" I came here just two days too late to share in the good things going on. 
Old Somerville was senior, and ordered the attack on St. Mary's, which 
Barrie executed. The prize-money will be about thirty thousand pounds, 
not more. Had our force been sufficient, our ne.xt movement would have 
been Savannah ; but, not mustering above a thousand bayonets, we are con- 
tent to keep possession of this island, which we are placing in a state of 
defence. Our operations will, I suppose, shortly be put a stop to by our 
friend Jimmy Madison, as peace or war now depends on him — the Com- 
missioners at Ghent having signed, and the Prince Regent ratified the terms 
of a peace, and iiostilities will cease so soon as he does the same. We 
hope, in the meantime, better luck will attend you at New Orleans than 



56 BRITISH BUCCANEERING. 

has hitherto done, anJ that you will have time to give General Jackson a 
trimming." 

Sir Thomas Cochrane Avrote, also, to Sir Thomas TroAV- 
bridge, oflf New Orleans, from Cumberland Island, February 
12th, 1815 : 

"I hope this will reach head-quarters in time for the St. Lawrence, who 
sails immediately for your part of the world witli the news of peace being 
concluded with this country, but of which, I should think, you will receive 
earlier intelligence direct from England. We are in daily expectation of a 
flag of truce to inform us of Mr. Madison's having ratified the treaty, on 
his doing which hostilities will immediately cease. I confess myself by no 
means sorry for this event. I think we have had quite enough of war, for 
some years to come ; although I should have wished to make the Yankees 
more sensible of our power and ability to punish them, should they again 
provoke us. As it it is, except the injury done to their trade, we have little 
to boast of. We are all very much grieved to learn the disasters in your 
quarter. Our loss seems to liave been immense ; and, from the reports we 
pick up, one is led to believe there was not much prospect of success at the 
commencement of the attack. We are most particularly unfortunate in 
our general officers on all occasions. I am afraid General Power, and the 
regiment with him, will not be with you in time to render any service. He 
was at Bermuda on the 24th ultimo, at which the Statira had not arrived. 

"I came here six weeks ago, and found St. Mary's had been taken two 
days before my arrival, which, of course, cuts me out of what has been cap- 
tured. Barrie commanded the party landed; old Somerville was senior 
officer, the Admiral having only arrived the day before me, in consequence 
of being blown off the coast by strong north-west gales, on his way from 
the Chesapeake. It was at first supposed, as is usual on these occasions, 
that a great deal of money icould be made; but if they clear thirty thousand 
pounds, it will be as much as they will do."" 

Another captured letter, from Mr. Swainson to Lieutenant 
Douglas, of H. M. brig Sophie, off New Orleans, dated 9th 
of February, 1815, boasted : 

" We had some fine fun at St. Mary's ; the bombs were at the town and 
had plenty of plunder. How are you off for tables and chests of 
drawers, cj-c. ?'" 

The last I shall quote of these disgraceful disclosures was 
from John Miller to Mr. Thomas Miller, 75 Old Gravel Lane, 
St. George's, East London, dated H. M. ship Lacedemonian, 
off land, February 12th, 1815. 



BRITISH BUCCANEERING. 57 

"We have lately been employed with the squadron under Admiral Cock- 
burn, and have taken Cumberland Island, and the town of St. Mary's, from 
tiie Yankees. Our troops and sailors behaved very well; part of the black 
regiment employed on that service acted with great gallantry. Blackey 
had 710 idea of giving quarters ; and it was with difficulty tlie officers pre- 
vented tlieir putting the prisoners to death. The Yankee riflemen fired at 
our men in ambush. Blackey, on the impulse of the moment, left the 
ranks, and pursued them in tiie woods, fighting like heroes. A poor Yan- 
kee, disarmed, begged for mercy. Blackey replied, ^he no come in bush for 
mercy,'' and immediately shot him dead!" 

Accounts of the vanquished and spoliated are often exagge- 
rated. But it is certain that the British land depredations, in 
that "war, were extremely base. At St. Simon's, a well- 
authenticated statement showed that, besides the slaves and 
cotton, they took everything they could lay their hands on : 
cotton-seed, old iron, leather, tanned and untanned, wine, 
li([uors, soap, candles, poultry, plate, a stock-buckle, pocketed 
by an officer named Horton, a carpet, some books, a razor, 
part of a barrel of flour, by a Lieutenant de Thierry ; medi- 
cines, paints, handsaw files, taken by a commander Ramsey, 
and spoons ; destroying whatever furniture they could not 
take away, and actually scraping the quicksilver from the 
backs of broken mirrors. 

If such ignominious pillage were not proved by detected 
written acknowledgments of the perpetrators, it would be 
incredible. No American proof would be sufficient to sub- 
stantiate it. And though many years have elapsed since 
i' these depredations, yet their undeniable occurrence is part of 
the events of that contest, which, not to expose, would be his- 
torical infidelity. On Lord Brougham's motion for thanks to 
Lord Ashburton, for his treaty at Washington (1843), that 
distinguished Briton ably recapitulated some of the too many 
causes of bitter estrangement between the American and 
British people. It is the very general and well-nigh universal 
hope, on this side of the Atlantic, that it may give place to 
reciprocated respect and kindred regard, of which, latterly, 
there are, for the first time, soothing British indications. But 
the barbarous methods of hostility avowed and ordered by 
government, as well as practised by both navy and army in 



58 MARINE RESULTS. 

the war of 1812, should be kept in recollection, to prevent 
their recurrence. Although inextinguishable aversion to Eng- 
land may still rankle in the bosoms of a portion of the Ame- 
rican population, a great majority of the best yearn with Eng- 
lish reverence and attachments. 

When peace was declared, and Christopher Gove, chosen to 
succeed Caleb Strong, as governor of • Massachusetts, stated 
to the Legislature of that state, that it was " owing to the for- 
bearance and clemency of the British that we were permitted 
to have a single ship on the ocean," there were sixty Ame- 
rican privateers at sea, many of them from Massachusetts, to- 
gether with the frigate Constitution, the sloops-of-war Wasp, 
Peacock, and Hornet, and the brig-of-war Tom Bowline, distin- 
guished by constant victories, numerous prizes, and altogether 
doing great damage to the commerce and naval renown of 
Great Britain. Seven thousand of the best seatnen in the 
world, better trained, organised, and much more formidable 
than they ever had been, were careering throughout every 
oceaii, to render 1815, if peace had not disarmed them, much 
more injurious to the no longer lords of the water-realms than 
American cruises proved in 1812, '13, and '14, by seldom 
failing successes. Above all, England by that war made the 
United States a naval power. Three ships-of-the-line, and several 
frigates and sloops, were nearly finished and ready for sea when 
it ended, without counting those on the lakes. British fleets in 
vain blockaded every coast, and traversed every sea : blockades 
were broke by American vessels, private armed and public, which 
out-sailed, out-manoeuvred, and out-fought their still mighty 
foes. So closely watched were our ports by superior force, that 
American cruisers mostly inaugurated by exploit what was con- 
summated by victory. The elements were first overcome, and 
then the -enemy, by those adventurous mariners, w^hose only 
chance of putting to sea Avas by taking leave in a hurricane or 
snow-storm, some tempestuous night, when winter-cold froze the 
ropes and covered the decks with ice. Only when the block- 
aders were momentai-ily blown off the coast, or their vigilance 
and activity petrified by intense weather, could the American 
vessels emerge ; and though some few were captured, yet the 



MARINE llESULTS. 59 

proportion lost Avas small compared Avith the successful. Even 
merchant vessels managed, by the superior sobriety and sagacity 
of their officers, and their familiar knowledge of the ocean, to 
escape the numerous hostile cruisers, Avhich covered the ocean. 
Four American ships, richly laden Avitli teas, silks and other 
precious products of China, sailed from Canton, when strictly 
watched by British vessels, which they eluded, and three of them 
arrived safe at Boston on three successive days. Twenty-seven 
vessels got to sea from Baltimore dm-ing the winter of 1814-15. 
At all events, the moral of triumph was hardly ever disturbed. 
If the merchants and leading men of Massachusetts had not 
opposed the Avar, and the marine enterprise of that seafaring 
commonwealth had been united with that of its fishermen, 
whalers, and other elite of the sea, still greater must have 
been the naval glory of the country, and much less the dis- 
credit of Massachusetts. 

Soon after the peace, accounts Avere stated and published in 
England and America, of the captures, successes, and defeats 
of each nation during the Avar upon the ocean : the English 
by parliament reports, the American only by individual ascer- 
tainments ; still the American as precise, correct, and credible, 
with less motive to misrepresent. These accounts do not dis- 
criminate, in the amount of prizes, betAveen those taken by pri- 
vate and by public armed vessels. By ours, the captures from 
the English were 2360, of which alloAving 750 to have been 
recaptured, there remained a total of 1610 prizes of priA^ate 
vessels made and secured, either burnt at sea or sent into port, 
by the Americans from the English. That is the American 
account. The British parliamentary report of American 
vessels taken by British Avas 1328. By the British account 
they took 18,413 American prisoners. By the American ac- 
count, we took 24,000 British. On board the public vessels of 
war, according to the American account, there were 625 British 
killed, 1032 Avounded, 2929 made prisoners, altogether 4367. 
By the same American account, there Averc killed, on board the 
American public vessels, 274, wounded 562, prisoners 1111, 
altogether 1749. The killed, Avounded, and captured British 
were, therefore, nearly tAvice as many as the Americans. Sixty- 



60 MARINE RESULTS. 

five British national vessels were captured; that is, vessels-of- 
vrar and king's armed packets. The British reported 42 Ame- 
rican puhlic armed vessels, captm-ed at sea and on the lakes. 
The frigate Chesapeake and brig Argus were the only two Ameri- 
can vessels of war subdued by any thing approaching to equality 
of force ; and in neither of those misfortunes was any naval 
character lost, but the contrary. In all the other naval en- 
gagements, ship to ship, and squadron to squadron, the British 
were vanquished by the Americans, twenty-one of the twenty- 
three times they fought ; with rapidity and disparity of destruc- 
tion indicating indubitable superiority. The frigates President 
and Essex, and the squadron of boats on Lake Borgne, over- 
powered by numbers, far from diminishing, much augmented 
the solid columns of American naval power ; which rose from 
the Atlantic, the Pacific, the British seas and the American 
lakes, acknowledged monuments of national strength, oversha- 
dowing adversaries at home as well as foreign enemies. The 
construction, equipment, and management of fighting vessels 
under sail, demonstrated by that trial, more than compensated 
for the cost and sufferings of a much longer and harder war. 
Impressment was practically abolished, with ample indemnity 
for the ignominious past and security for the glorious future. 
At the same time, Fulton, discountenanced in England and 
France, launched steamboats on the Hudson and Ohio, whose 
since-established superiority over English steamers by sea, 
is much owing to the energy and rivalry of that struggle 
— sanguinary conflict having given place, probably for ever, to 
that commercial freedom and competition which enriches and 
approximates both nations. 

A frigate, three sloops, and one brig-of-war, manned by a 
thousand men, with batteries of one hundred and twenty guns, 
were abroad upon the ocean, defying British might, when the 
war closed. Thirty-sLx known privateers, carrying three hun- 
dred and fifty-seven cannons, manned by more than three 
thousand seamen, besides some thirty more privateers un- 
known, estimated as carrying three hundred and fifty cannons, 
and manned by twenty -five hundred seamen ; altogether not 
less than eight thousand seamen, with eight hundred cannons ; 



MARINE RESULTS. 61 

in tlie winter of 1814-15 traversed the ocean in all quarters, 
every vessel better manned, equipped, and managed than those 
•which in 1812, '13, and '14 had done so much to inspire ex- 
ploit, stimulate adventure, illustrate achievement, and effect 
peace. Of these American sea-forces, regular and volunteer, 
the sca-militia, in private-armed vessels, constituted five-sixths 
of the power, did a large part of the execution, and are en- 
titled to their full share of historical acknowledgment. 

This memento of privateer contribution to the triumphs of 
the war and the freedom of the sea, would not be complete 
without adding that, long after it ended, in 1824, the American 
government offered to sacrifice that arm of its force on the altar 
of peace. Those founders of democracy, Franklin and Jeffer- 
son, returned from Europe disgusted with all war. By their 
treaties they endeavored to cut off as many as possible of its 
supports, and, among the rest, private-armed vessels, which, 
as regular soldiers treat militia, naval officers, especially the 
English, disparage as mere depredators. Accordingly, after the 
peace, Quincy Adams, as President, and Monroe, as Secretary 
of State, proposed, through Mr. Rush, then minister, to the 
British government the total abolishment of all private war 
on the ocean ; that in no future war should the United States 
or Great Britain employ privateers, nor molest merchant ves- 
sels, but that hostilities by sea should be confined exclusively 
to national vessels-of-war, as hostilities by land at least profess 
to respect private property. The British government at once 
rejected a proposal which, if accepted, might have almost ex- 
tinguished war by sea. 

"Wliat w^as, in this country, called the Dartmoor massacre 
was a distressing and aggravating close to our maritime rela- 
tions with Great Britain. During the war, remonstrating cor- 
respondence took place between Reuben G. Beasley, the Ame- 
rican agent in England for prisoners, and the government 
there, and between John Mason, American commissary, and 
Thomas Barclay, British agent for prisoners in this country, 
concerning alleged ill-treatment of American prisoners by their 
English captors. No assertion, I believe, was ever made of 
American ill-treatment of English prisoners. Prisoners are 



62 DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 

often treated rigorously by inferior keepers, even tliougli tlieir 
superiors and orders may be merciful. Captivity is a hardship 
of which complaint is one of the few alleviations. 

From Halifax, complaints by American prisoners induced 
the American commissary to remonstrate with the British 
agent, which, after a good deal of controversial correspondence, 
ended by some English amelioration of prisoners' treatment at 
that station and on Melville Island. Privateering, under British 
denunciation, was treated as disreputable warfare, though prac- 
tically no more so, if so much, as that of the British royal navy. 
The prisoners taken from American vessels captured, espe- 
cially privateers, were therefore treated with great severity, in 
British vessels afloat, in prisons, hulks, and ashore. Of the 
7000 British prisoners confined in Massachusetts, under care 
of the United States' marshal, only three of those not wounded 
died ; whereas in Melville Island, in twenty months, 300 Ame- 
rican prisoners died in the hospital ; and, as was alleged, from 
want of proper attention by John Cochet, (once a captain of 
the navy,) the superintendent there of prisoners, who was uni- « 
formly represented by them as inhuman and merciless. McDo- 1 
nald, too, the Scots surgeon at Melville Island, was said, by : 
the prisoners, to be a brutal and hateful person. It is part of 
the history of that war, that while all British prisoners were 
uniformly and universally treated with great humanity and 
indulgence, American prisoners were severely dealt with in 
whatever British place of confinement it was their misfortune [ 
to fall. Numerous publications of these facts were made by 
many prisoners, signed by responsible names, on both sides. 
Every one of the American victories, by sea and land, without 
exception, was followed by acts of exemplary kindness to 
British prisoners ; for Avhich public thanks were given by the 
enemy after the battles of Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, New • 
Orleans, Little York, and on several other occasions. Whereas 
such acknowledgments from American prisoners to British 
captors were rarely, if ever, awarded ; and only because not 
due ; for the natural American inclination to applaud what is 
English seldom fails to appear when it may. American sea- 
men averred that they were hardly treated in order to induce 



DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 63 

tlicm to ship in British merchantmen, whence they couki be 
easily transferred to ships of war. 

By the third article of the Treaty of Ghent, all prisoners 
of war taken on either side, as well by land as by sea, were to 
be restored as soon as practicable, on paying the debts which 
they had contracted. Some months after the peace of Ghent, 
and before it was quite settled what was meant by the stipula- 
tion to restore prisoners confined respectively, Americans in 
Europe, and Englishmen in America, a lamentable massacre 
occurred at Dartmoor, where American prisoners were confined 
in England, which excited much American sympathy and indig- 
nation. 

Impressment of Americans by English was undeniably a 
shocking outrage, for which, when war was declared, England 
deemed the United States qualified by weakness, and having 
long suffered it. The Dartmoor massacre was an aggravating 
end of that hard beginning ; by which the original and intole- 
rable injustice of impressment and stripes was finally embit- 
tered by bloodshed and cruel homicide. 

When the war broke out, the native American sailor who 
had been forced, by impressment, into a British vessel of war, 
was allowed none but the stern option of either remaining 
there and fighting against his countrymen in arms, to resist 
impressment, or being given up as a prisoner of war, to the 
misery of indefinite confinement in a prison-ship, or prison 
ashore. One and all preferred the latter, as the least of the 
two evils. After long and painful incarceration, several were 
shot to death, and others maimed and mutilated, for impatience 
to be set free when war was over. Nearly 6000 American, 
together with 10,000 French prisoners, were confined at Dart- 
moor; of whom it was said that one-half of the Americans, 
no doubt many, were impressed men, transferred from British 
vessels, when hostilities began, to the condition of prisoners of 
w^ar. That sequel of original wrong was a deplorable homi- 
cide, of which some account belongs to history. The v>ar 
provoked by impressment, and waged in vindication of those 
who suff"ered by that enormity, closed, some time after peace 
was ratified, by a memorable catastrophe, a consequence of the 



64 DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 

original wrong ; -wliicli it is due to the seafaring sufferers briefly, 
but without extenuation, to commeraorate, as they have no his- 
torian of their own. 

Seventeen hundred feet above the sea's level, in a bleak and 
barren part of Devonshire, fifteen miles from Plymouth, and 
not very far from Dartmouth, Weymouth, Sidmouth, and other 
English ports, was Dartmoor fortress, appropriated for the 
custody of prisoners of war. In the midst of a dreary, uneven 
and uncultivated waste, without trees, plantation or improve- 
ment for many miles, it seemed to sympathize with the gloomy 
solitude of dismal incarceration inflicted, not upon malefactors, 
traitors, or assassins, but on brave soldiers and daring seamen, 
who, fighting for their country, unfortunately fell into cap- 
tivity. Climate uncongenial with American constitutions, 
moist, wet, and cloudy, owing to great elevation from, and 
proximity to, the sea, for nine months of the year afilicted 
with catarrhs, rheumatisms and consumptions, the ill-clad, 
some of them almost naked, prisoners, ill-fed and ill-lodged, 
exposed to some of the worst influences which can act upon 
human happiness and health. Seven prisons, each calculated 
to contain from 1100 to 1500 men, were superintended by an 
agent of the transport oflSce, Thomas G. Shortland, a captain 
of the royal navy, with George McGrath, as surgeon of the 
hospital. The guard consisted of 2000 well-disciplined militia, 
from the neighbouring county of Somerset, and two companies 
of royal artillery. All the seven prisons are built of stone, 
and surrounded by two strong inner walls ; the outer wall a mile 
in circumference; the inner walls surmounted with military 
walks, on which the sentinels performed their watchful rounds 
day and night. Within the inner wall are iron palisades, ten 
feet high, and several guard-houses against the outer wall; 
houses for the superintendent, surgeon and turnkeys, and a 
market-place, into which the neighbouring country-people 
brought their supplies. The fere was not bad. The surgeon 
was humane and kind. But the superintendent was com- 
plained of by the prisoners, and probably found it diflScult to 
please such crowds of unemployed captives, part of whose few 
enjoyments was repining. After the peace between the United 



DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 65 

States and Great Britain, tlie Americans became extremely rest- 
less and impatient. Never very submissive or resigned to their 
hard fate, they meditated emancipation with constant and in- 
creasing restlessness when it was impossible to escape, not only 
by reason of the bars, bolts, and other restraints of their prison ; 
but beyond it, what could they do, whither go, or upon what 
subsist? — scarcely clothed, many of them bare-footed, without 
means of procuring food, clothing or lodging, unarmed, and 
surrounded by British soldiers and sailors, provided with all 
the means and power of compulsion. The American prisoners 
complained not only of their British keeper, but also of their 
American agent, Reuben G. Beasley, whom they accused of 
neglect of their sufferings, and indifference to their fate. But 
Mr. Beasley was much esteemed by his own government, which 
continued him, long after the war, in the consulate of Havre, 
where, as in England, his established character was that of 
an intelligent, resolute and useful public officer. The Ameri- 
can prisoners had no good reason to complain of him, although 
they were under a different impression. Captain Shortland, 
too, the British superintendent at Dartmoor, was probably less 
to blame than the American prisoners supposed. Restless, 
audacious, and sometimes turbulent, it was difficult for him 
to keep them in order, without some rigor. They had no 
reason to complain of their fare, nor was their treatment gene- 
rally harsh or unjustifiable. But several irksome months 
elapsed after peace before their enlargement, for which they 
became extremely impatient. 

jMr. Adams, ]Mr. Clay, and Mr. Gallatin, were negotiating, in 
London, with Frederick J. Robinson, Henry Goulbm-n, and 
William Adams, the commercial convention between the United 
States and Great Britain, signed by those gentlemen on the 3d 
of July, 1815, Avhen the Dartmoor massacre occurred on the 
evening of Friday, the 6th of April. The American prisoners, 
excited by mingled impatience and gratification at peace, 
insisted on speedy enlargement. Ten thousand French pri- 
soners, with characteristic hilarity, though some of them had 
been much longer imprisoned thaii any of the Americans, 
and worse treated (and their war, too, was over), submitted — 

Vol. III. — 5 



6Q DAKTMOOR MASSACRE. 

gay, frolicsome and harmless. The grave and less sub- 
missive Americans, more difficult to manage, were perhaps not 
free from blame in the controverted, but, at all events, de- 
plorable and fatal transaction, by which six or eight of them 
were slain, eighteen or twenty wounded, and several badly 
mutilated. Whilst Thomas George Shortland, the naval com- 
mander, and Major Jolliffe, of the Somerset mihtia, were 
finishing their dinners, many of the American prisoners, to- 
wards evening, on the 6th of April, were playing ball against 
an outward enclosure. Some of them made a hole through it, 
as they affirmed, to go and recover the ball that had fallen 
over, but, as their British keepers apprehended, to effect their 
escape. The alarm-bell was rung, the drums beat to arms, the 
prisoners were driven in with charged bayonets by the military, 
fired upon, when they resisted or delayed to retire ; and, 
after they were driven, or retired, to their respective quarters, 
were then barbarously shot there, through the windows, and 
as was agreed, on all hands, unjustifiably. Whatever doubt or 
controversy involved the beginning of the fray, the British 
government acknowledged that, after the prisoners were driven 
or retired into their prisons, the individual firing of the militia, 
through the doors and iron-grated windows, by which several 
prisoners were killed and wounded, was unpardonable homicide. 
A committee of the prisoners drew up a report, severely crimi- 
nating their keepers. But an inquest of neighboring farmers 
returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. Correspondence 
on the subject ensued between Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin and 
Lord Castlereagh, who expressed to them the great regret of 
the British government, and proposed that either Mr. Clay or 
Mr. Gallatin, with one of the British ministers at Ghent, 
should repair to Dartmoor, ascertain the circumstances, and 
make a joint report thereupon. Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin 
not thinking proper, unauthorized, to undertake that function, 
suggested Mr. Beasley for the purpose ; who also declined, as 
too much occupied with his other duties. A young Ameri- 
can in London, Mr. Charles King, son of Rufus King, 
formerly American minister there, was then requested by 
Messrs. Clay and Gallatin, and undertook, together with 



DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 67 

Francis Seymour Larpcnt, appointed by the English govern- 
ment, to ascertain and report the facts. After examining some 
eighty Avitnesses, King and Larpent reported, on the 2Gth of 
April, a statement somewhat criminating, but yet exonerating, 
the British; which, on the 22d of May, 1815, Lord Castle- 
reagh communicated to Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin, with 
assurances how deeply the Prince Regent lamented the conse- 
quences of the unhappy affair, and his desire to make compen- 
sation to the widows and families of the suffei'ers. The 
Regent's disapprobation of the conduct of the officers of the 
Somerset militia, to whose want of exertion, calling for the 
most severe animadversion, the extent of the calamity was 
ascribable, was also at the same time made known by the 
British secretary, through the American ministers, to their 
government. 

Mr. Adams, whose English mission commenced with that 
untoward occurrence, much regretted by both governments, 
deprecating any additional or fresh cause of ill-blood, intimated 
to Lord Castlereagh that Captain Shortland and Major Jol- 
liffe ought to be put on their trial, as some atonement to this 
country ; which his lordship adroitly evaded by saying that, as 
they would certainly be acquitted, that would only make matters 
worse than ever. All that was done, therefore, after investi- 
gation, was formal expression of regret. 

On the 23d of June, 1815, Mr. Adams communicated Lord 
Castlereagh's letter to our government ; Mr. Adams regretting 
that Captain Shortland had not been brought to trial. On the 
3d of August, 1815, Anthony St. John Baker, British charge 
d'affaires, in a letter from Philadelphia, repeated Lord Castle- 
reagh's regrets, with the offer of compensation to the families 
of the sufferers. The firing, he said, appeared to have been 
justified, at its commencement, by the turbulent conduct of the 
prisoners ; yet want of steadiness in the troops, and exertion 
in the officers, called for the most severe animadversion. Mr. 
Monroe did not answer Mr. Baker's letter for several months, 
not till the 11th of December, 1815, then declining the provi- 
sion proposed for the sufferers and their families by what he 
termed a much to be lamented event, causing deep distress to 



68 DARTMOOR MASSACRE. 

the wliole American people, increased by the two governments 
not agreeing in sentiment respecting the conduct of the parties 
to it. 

By that rebuke, long deferred before it followed the British 
apology and rejected atonement, the Secretary of State echoed 
public opinion, which, throughout the United States generally, 
loudly condemned the Dartmoor massacre, the British impunity 
for it, and Mr. King's acquiescence in the exoneration which 
he recommended, what he pronounced outrageous, and the 
British commissioner agreed with him was unjustifiable. A 
committee of the prisoners, in their published strictures on the 
official report of King and Larpent, charged them with omitting 
to take the testimony of many American witnesses attending 
to be examined by the commission, and prepared to give ma- 
terial evidence. Of the eighty witnesses examined, all the 
British keepers, officers, agents, turnkeys, and surgeon, formed 
a large part ; between whose testimony and that of the Ame- 
ricans the conflict of averment was perplexing as to the origin 
of the affair. But the proof was clear of unpardonable mis- 
conduct of the soldiery, in the latter part of the tumult, after 
the prisoners retired to their apartments ; and probably, also, 
established that the Americans were insubordinate and turbu- 
lent in the beginning, if not insulting and provoking dm-ing the 
sort of conflict that took place when driven to their quarters. 
It was Mr. Clay's opinion that the Americans were chargeable 
with insubordination ; that Mr. King was justifiable for the 
report ; and that Mr. Beasley, on that as on other occasions, 
behaved well. Mr. Adams thought that some national atone- 
ment was due to this country, which Mr. Monroe deemed should 
be more than pecuniary. The affair ended, however, as all 
those negotiated between the United States and Great Britain 
have ended, without American advantage. For the treaty of 
independence is the only instance wherein American reverence 
has not relented before British ascendency. The Dartmoor 
massacre closed distressingly the contest long provoked by 
injustice to seamen. The parliament report acknowledged 
2548 undeniable Americans impressed unjustly. If, as is pro- 
bable, any of that number were among the killed or maimed 



HISTORY OF WAR LAW. 69 

at Dartmoor, impressed freemen, imprisoned because impressed, 
and when they should have been liberated, kept imprisoned 
during the whole war, the fiite of such sufferers was cruel wrong, 
which Great Britain would have waged war to avenge, any one 
of whom that mighty empire would have vindicated by all the 
means in her power. 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF WAR LAW. 

War Law — Common Law — No Jury in Admiralty — International Law — 
The Exchange — Prize Law — Seizure by mere war — Freedom of the 
Seas — Supreme Court of the United States — The Judges — Attorney- 
General Pinkney — Admiralty Droits — European Publicists — Sir William 
Scott — British Prize-Law adopted — Chief-Justice Marshall dissenting — 
Case of the Nereid— Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800— Free Ships 
make free Goods — Judicial proceedings in Prize Cases — Enemy's Licenses 
— Alien Enemies — Militia — War Law, as administered in war with 
Mexico — Blockade — Contraband — Search — Free Ships free Goods — Re- 
spect of Property and Religion — Martial Law as administered. 

The philosophical history of a country of law, ought to be 
found in its code. In all countries, besides statutes, ordi- 
nances, rescripts, and adjudications, there is a basis of common 
law. But the American confederacy has been thought to have 
no common law for restraining crime, Avhile that for contracts 
varies according to the adoption and adaptation of English 
common or French law, administered by the federal judiciary, 
in different sovereign states. Maritime law is a distinct sys- 
tem in form and forum. Written constitutions are generally 
supposed to impose on American judges the inevitable, hitherto 
untried, function of determining whether statutes conform to 
constitutions, and annulling them if they do not. The United 
States, and most of the American states, having adopted, by 
statute, the English separation of tribunals of justice into 
courts of equity, for mitigating absolute law, and courts of 



70 COMMON LAW. 

common law, disregarding equity ; the whole judicial structure, 
federal and state, common and equitable, admiralty and revenue, 
civil and criminal, is complex, and difficult of comprehension. 
Complicated codes, multiplying advocates, increase judicial 
influence, which is pervading and effective in the United States. 
Law is a mild infliction. Individuals are less coerced by its 
direct action than in other countries. But the community 
allows American courts of justice to exercise political power, 
by which their sphere is elevated, and self-government rallies 
to their support most of the people. Reverence for judicial 
determinations predominates. The profession of the law is, 
moreover, the main avenue to office and distinction. 

Shortly before the declaration of war, in Febi'uary, 1812, 
the Supreme Court of the United States resolved, for the first 
time during the twenty years it had been mooted, the question 
whether the courts of the United States have common law ju- 
risdiction over crime, after that question had become mixed 
with the permanent, and part of the ephemeral, politics of the 
country, one party favoring as indispensable and preferable, 
the other discountenancing, the reliances of English common 
law, and judicial constructive authority. Among the many 
offensive acts of the French minister in 1793, were those of 
commissioning vessels and enlisting men in American ports, 
for cruising against the English. An American, thus enlisted, 
having been arrested by the American authorities when there 
was no act of Congress, or treaty with France, prohibiting such 
misconduct, the French minister demanded his release as a 
French citizen, "serving," he said, "the common and glorious 
cause of liberty, which no positive law or treaty declared a 
crime." The attorney-general, officially called upon by the 
president, gave his opinion that the man was an American 
citizen, amenable to American law, because treaties, the su- 
preme law of the land, with three of the powers at war mth 
France, stipulated that there should be peace between their 
subjects and the citizens of the United States; and the accused 
was punishable at common law, his offence coming within the 
description of disturbing the peace of the United States. The 
secretary of state, Jefferson, in his letter to Governeur Morris, 



COMMON LAW. 71 

the minister of the United States in France, asserted thereupon, 
that an American citizen could not divest himself of that cha- 
racter by the commission of a crime ; and that it is an essential 
attribute of the jurisdiction of every counti-y to preserve peace, 
and punish breach of it ^vithin its own limits. By what organ 
of government offences against the neutrality of the United 
States should be redressed, this letter declared was not then 
perfectly settled ; whether by the judiciary, or by the execu- 
tive, charged with the military force and foreign relations of 
the country. To meet this exigency. Jay, the chief-justice, and 
Wilson, an associate judge of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, affirmed the existence of English common law for the 
United States, of which the law of nations is part, so that 
breaches of neutrality might be punished as crimes, without 
statute so declaring them. Soon afterwards Ellsworth, who 
succeeded Jay as chief-justice, convicted and punished an Ame- 
rican citizen, for misdemeanor, according to English common 
law, by serving on board a French privateer; affirming not only 
that English common law remains the same as before the revo- 
lution, but affirming also, as law of the United States, the 
British dogma of perpetual allegiance ; by practical contradic- 
tion of which dogma, the United States invite an increase of 
some hundred thousand inhabitants a year, to fill and till 
the unoccupied regions of a new continent. Law, the district 
judge of Connecticut, where the English common law is not in 
force, but as sanctioned by judicial decisions, hesitated going 
the whole length of Chief-Justice Ellsworth's opinion. But 
Peters, the district judge of Pennsylvania, concm-red in those 
of Jay and Wilson, before mentioned, and united with the 
former in competing, by common law, a consul for sending 
threatening letters to the British minister. In 1798, Chase, 
another judge of the Supreme Court, before whom a man was 
convicted of attempting to bribe a revenue officer, declared that 
the English common law is not that of the United States, and 
cannot be recurred to for either the definition or punishment 
of offences : though the accused was nevertheless punished, as 
Peters, the district judge, refused to concur with Chase in 
arresting judgment. On Bm-r's trial, in 1807, the third chief- 



72 COMMON LAW. 

justice, Marshall, intimated his opinion that the statute 
of the United States, enacting that the laws of the several 
states shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at 
common law in the courts of the United States, in cases, 
where they apply, except where otherwise provided, does not 
render the common law applicable to offences against the United 
States. Thus vexed and doubtful was the law on this subject, • 
when, in 1812, it was brought for judgment before the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in the case of an alleged libel on 
the president, indicted as an offence at common law. Judge 
Johnson pronounced the opinion of the court, that no exercise 
of common laAV jurisdiction, in criminal cases, is within the 
federal judicial power. Implied power, to a certain extent, he 
considered indispensable ; such as results from the nature of 
the institutions of courts of justice. To fine for contempt, im- 
prison for contumacy, enforce the observance of order, &c., are 
powers, the judge said, which cannot be dispensed with in a" 
court, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others. 
So far the court deem that the courts of the United States 
possess powers not immediately delegated from statutes, but 
not common law power to punish extra forensic crimes. Next 
year the junior judge of the Supreme Court, Story, considering 
the point open to be discussed, notwithstanding the judgment 
of the majority, pronounced by Johnson, Avhich was without 
hearing an argument, ruled that the federal courts, on their 
circuits, have cognizance of all offences against the United 
States. What they are depends on the common law, applied to 
the sovereignty and authorities confided to the United States ; 
and courts having cognizance of all offences against the United 
States may punish them by fine and imprisonment, where no 
specific punishment is provided by statute. This opinion was 
not revised, as the judge desired, by the Supreme Court till 
three years afterwards, (in 1816,) when Judge Johnson repeated 
the judgment of a majority of the court, aflirming that of 1812. 
No counsel appeared to argue the case, which the attorney- 
general, Richard Rush, submitted without argument. Judge 
Story persisted in his opinion. Judges Washington and Liv- 
ingston desired an argument. There the matter rests, profes- 



COMMON LAW. 73 

sional attachment preferring, public sentiment rejecting, the 
English common law. 

William Rawlc, author of an accredited treatise on the con- 
stitution of the United States, upheld the English common as 
American common law, in the early cases before mentioned, 
before Judges Jay, Wilson, and Chase. Alexander James Dal- 
las, afterwards secretary of the treasury, and Peter Stephen 
Duponceau, were the professional contestants of it. In a 
dissertation, since published, by Duponceau, on the subject, he 
contends that the English common law is indispensable for de- 
finition, if not for jurisdiction ; that it is the law of the United 
States in the national capacity, recognised in the constitution 
and many statutes ; in full force in the territories and districts 
(not states) of the United States ; and that in the states the 
federal judiciary, wherever jm-isdiction is given to them by the 
written laws, comprehending subject matter and person, are 
bound to take the English common law as their rule, if other 
law, national or state, be not applicable. We live in the midst 
of it, breathe and imbibe it, meet it sleeping and awake, tra- 
velling and at home. It is our idiom, and we must learn 
another language to get rid of it. Yet the Irish, German, 
Scotch, French, and other population of the United States, 
are equal in number to the English ; and all the states formed 
from Louisiana have a common law not English. The fictions, 
technicalities, and complexities of English jurisprudence, have 
been mostly disowned, and in questions of property there is no 
reason why English should be preferable to other law. But all 
English laws which limit or define the arbitrary power of go- 
vernment, declarations of right, laws of personal freedom, what- 
ever individualizes and upholds man, are cherished as American 
birthrights. 

The earlier adjudications introduced English penal common 
law for jurisdiction over breaches of neutrality. The second 
chief-justice, Ellsworth, adjudged that even inalienable alle- 
giance is American common law. Cases of bribery of a federal 
functionary, threatening letters to him, and libel of the Presi- 
dent, succeeded. That of which Judge Story was tenacious was 
an admiralty case, the rescue of a prize on the high seas. But 



74 COMMON LAW. 

the Supreme Court seems bv its decisions to overrule all com- 
mon law in criminal cases. William Johnson, who pronounced 
them, was the first judicial appointment to that court by presi- 
dent Jefferson, strongly imbued with the principles of southern 
democracy, bold, independent, eccentric, and sometimes harsh. 
His catalogue of inherent powers to fine and imprison has been 
since reduced, by act of Congress, perhaps below authority 
indispensable to forensic order and judicial dignity. The 
pregnant &c., superadded to that catalogue, wliich might have 
teemed with faculties, is thus also brought to naught. 

Immediately after passing upon English common law, the 
Supreme Court, in 1812, confirmed several prior decisions, 
refusing trial by jury in cases of seizure upon waters navigable 
from sea, by vessels of more than ten tons burthen, charged 
with breach of law. It was the unanimous opinion of the 
court that, such cases being of civil and admiralty jurisdiction, 
parties interested in them are not entitled to the advantages 
of a jury. One of the complaints of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence is for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits 
of trial by jury. The people of most of the United States 
have always been anxious for that mode of determining dis- 
putes, not only for its judicial advantages, but because it also 
gives every one a share in the administration of justice, other- 
wise engrossed by very few, less capable of ascertaining facts 
than the community. The transitory appointment of jurors 
from the mass, and their irresponsible fusion with it again, 
execute the principle of rotation in office, so generally recog- 
nized. Yet, on neither of the three occasions, when the ques- 
tion of dispensing with juries to try certain seizures was 
solemnly presented to the Supreme Court, did it either hear or 
give any reason for rejecting them, beyond the shortest state- 
ment of the case. So strongly impressed was an attorney- 
general, Charles Lee, with its magnitude, after the judgment 
pronounced on the second occasion, that he earnestly entreated 
the judges to indulge him with an argument for juries ; and 
leave Avas given, but so ungraciously, that one of them, Chase, 
said to him from the bench, that, though the argument at the 
bar, on the first case, "was no great things, yet the com-t had 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 75 

well considered the subject." Congress, by their act (February 
26th, 1845) giving the District Court of the United States 
admiralty jurisdiction over matters concerning vessels of twenty 
tons, enrolled and licensed for coasting trade between places in 
different states, upon lakes and navigable waters connected 
with lakes, with the maritime laws of the United States as 
their rule of decision, gave the right of trial by jury of all 
facts put in issue, when either party requires it; and also a 
concurrent remedy by trial at common law, when competent 
common law and admiralty juries were both rejected by the 
Supreme Court without hearing their causes pleaded. Con- 
gress, in part at least, restored the one, and the bar, could 
they effect it, probably would the other. 

The Supreme Court, at the session of 1813, adjudged the 
delicate question of international law, whether an American 
citizen, in an American court, can entitle himself to a vessel of 
which he was dispossessed by a foreign power, thereafter sailing 
under its flag as a national vessel. The schooner Exchange was 
clajmcd in the port of Philadelphia, in 1811, as having been, in 
1810, unlawfully taken from the American owners, thus seeking 
restitution of their property, alleging that her French captors 
had not lawful title to her. The law officer of the United 
States, the district attorney, Dallas, instructed by the execu- 
tive, suggested to the court that the vessel belonged to the 
French government, put into an American port in distress, and 
was about to resume her cruise when judicially seized ; and he 
produced to the court her national commission. The decree of 
the judge, Washington, in the Circuit Court at Philadelphia, 
restored the vessel to the American claimants. On appeal to 
the Supreme Court, the question was considered. Chief Justice 
INIarshall said, with earnest solicitude, that the decision might 
conform to those principles of municipal and national law by 
which it ought to be regulated. The path to be explored was 
unbeaten by few, if any, precedents of written or other law, 
and the court was thrown upon principles and general reasons. 
These were judicial lights with which the Chief Justice was 
more familiar than those of professional learning. The juris- 
diction of courts is part, he considered, of every nation's sove- 



76 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

reignty ; and all jurisdiction is confined to national territories. 
But all have consented to some relaxation of it, for mutual 
accommodation ; one of "which is in favor of other sovereigns, 1 
none of whom are amenable to each other. Foreign sovereigns, 
ministers or troops, within the territories of each other, are 
deemed there by consent of the territorial sovereign. Foreign 
ships are suffered, more readily than armies, to be in other 
than their own territorial jurisdiction. Treaties commonly 
stipulate such permission. If there be no treaty, comity im- 
plies the assent it would give. When nations do not choose, to 
let foreign vessels enter their ports, it is usual to declare such 
denial ; otherwise permission is taken for granted. Whether 
private vessels are thus privileged, as well as national, the 
court gave no opinion ; intimating, however, that a private 
vessel, availing herself of an asylum provided by treaty, would 
not be amenable to the local jurisdiction, unless she committed 
some act violating the compact. Vessels, perhaps, should have 
immunities for distress not accorded to trade. But it cannot 
be presumed that the sovereign's allowing a public vessel the 
asylum of his ports, in distress, could mean to exercise his 
jurisdiction over her. Individuals must render, at least, local 
and temporary allegiance wherever they are. But a public 
ship is part of the military force of her nation, acts under 
the immediate and direct command of the sovereign, and 
is employed by him in national objects ; which interference of 
a foreign state might defeat, and which cannot take place w^ith- 
out affecting the dignity and power of that nation. The im- 
plied license under which she entered the foreigner's port, 
claiming the rights of hospitality, seems to require her exempt 
tion from jurisdiction there. While, by unanimous consent of 
nations, individual foreigners are amenable, nations have not 
asserted jurisdiction over public ships. A sovereign's private 
property is distinguishable from that of the nation. His pri- 
vate property abroad may be liable to local jurisdiction, with- 
out involving that which he holds or governs for his country. 
The vessel in this case, once the libellant's property, having 
become a French national ship, it was not competent for an 
American court to enquire into the validity of the foreign title. 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 77 

Being a public armed ship, in the service of a foreign sove- 
reign, with whom the United States are at peace, and having 
entered an American port open for her reception, on the terms 
in which ships of war generally enter the ports of a friendly 
poAver, she must be considered as having come into the Ame- 
rican territory under its implied promise that, while necessarily 
within it, demeaning herself in a friendly manner, she should 
be exempt from the jurisdiction of the country. It seemed, to 
the court, to be a principle of public law, that national ships 
of war, entering the port of a friendly power open for their 
reception, are to be considered as, by the consent of that power, 
exempt from its jurisdiction. It was furthermore the opinion 
of the court, that the general inability of the judicial power to 
enforce its decision in such cases, inasmuch as the sovereign 
power of a nation is alone competent to avenge the wrongs of 
other sovereigns, and wrongs of this sort are questions of policy 
more than law, for diplomatic, not judicial treatment, would be 
an additional diflBculty, entitled to serious consideration. 

Judge Washington, whose decree was thus reversed, relied 
on what the Supreme Court thought his misconception of Byn- 
kershoeck's opinion that the effects of sovereigns are liable to 
foreign jurisdiction ; meaning their private, not national, pro- 
perty ; and on Rutherforth's, that the goods of foreign col- 
lective bodies are liable, like individuals', to local authority. 
Judge Washington argued that it is conceded that a national 
vessel would be answerable to om- cognizance for offences 
within it, which brings the question to one of locality, not 
nationality. Public vessels are answerable to material men 
for repairs done to them in American ports. They must pay 
debts contracted there. And if a private vessel may be for- 
feited for offence, which is admitted, why not a public ? Nei- 
ther personal privilege, character of property, or locality of 
transaction excluding jurisdiction, as Judge Washington held, 
he brought himself to the lofty conclusion that if he could be 
so wicked as to decide differently from the judgment he enter- 
tained, his genius and talents would not enable him to give a 
reason which his conscience or judgment could approve. 

Social, political and professional prepossessions in the sea- 



78 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

port where the Ch'cuit Court sat, were inimical to France, and 
may have unconsciously affected the mind of Judge Washington. 
But at the federal seat of government a different moral atmo- 
sphere prevailed. The judgment of the Supreme Court was' 
there apparently unanimous, Judge Washington giving no dis- 
senting or explanatory opinion. Alluding, as he did in the 
course of his decree at Philadelphia, to the executive power 
felt by courts in other countries, not yet in this, an honest 
independence may have swerved his judgment. No juster 
judge adorned that bench. His integrity was never biassed or 
suspected. Nephew and principal legatee of his illustrious 
uncle, without personal resemblance, for the judge was slight 
in person and insignificant in appearance, he resembled the 
General in moral courage and dignified official demeanor. 
Firm, impartial, fearless, candid and capable of great labor, 
Bushrod Washington, for more than thirty years, enjoyed the 
universal confidence of his circuit, Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey, and the respect of the bar, whom he always controlled. 
Silence, patience, imperturbable and impenetrable suspension 
of his mind till informed by all that could be said on both 
sides, and then inflexible decision, with no fear of responsi- 
bility, were qualifications in which he excelled more than in 
extensive learning or clearness of perception. His logic was 
better than his judgment, though well versed in common law 
and equity ; and not excelled in the talent of expounding cases, 
especially to juries, to whom his charges were models of clear 
and conclusive reasoning. Verdicts were rarely given con- 
trary to his instructions ; and while he left facts, with consi- 
derable freedom, to juries, he was absolute in asserting his 
exclusive command of law. 

The most fundamental adjudication on war law did not take 
place, in the Supreme Court, till March, 1814, reversing a 
circuit judgment, in October, 1813. An American, without 
executive commission, or specific authority by act of Congress, 
seized British property, and the law officer of the United States 
libelled it as prize of war. The judge of the first circuit, after 
an elaborate review of the subject, decreed that all hostile 
things taken in war belong to the state. Individuals acquire 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 79 

no right to them, but as granted by the state. But it was 
Judge Story's opinion that the English law, authorising to seize 
hostile property for the use of the crown, subject to its ratifi- 
cation or rejection at discretion, conforms to the belligerent 
law of all other nations, and is the constitutional law of the 
United States. Mere predatory captures may be punished 
or adopted by the state. Captors must be commissioned ; but 
the existence of war is sufficient commission for individuals to 
wage it, till prohibited by superior authority. The subject acts 
at his peril. The sovereign takes the whole prize, and shares 
or rejects it, or punishes the captor as he will. But till forbid, 
the individual captor is duly authorised. Bynkershoeck's asser- 
tion that uncommissioned captors, making prize otherwise than 
in self-defence, may be dealt with as pirates, Judge Story con- 
sidered the mere municipal law of Holland ; and contended that 
the supposed allegations of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Vattel 
against the legality of private hostilities are misapprehensions 
of the true meaning of their treatises. As the result of his 
researches into European, not British authorities, the learned 
judge concluded that uncommissioned captors acquire no title 
to hostile property taken, and that in modern times mere war 
does not warrant individuals to capture : but in self-defence 
they may, and whatever hostile thing falls into their hands 
they must secure to be disposed of as the sovereignty determines. 
They depredate at their peril, subject to punishment or reward 
by the sovereignty. If the principles of British prize law go 
beyond those of other nations, Judge Story declared himself 
free to say that he considered them the law of this country. He 
noticed the dicta of foreign elementary writers, because relied 
on by counsel in argument, but the practice of American courts 
in prize proceedings must be governed by the rules of admiralty 
law as disclosed in English reports, in preference to such mere 
dicta. Hostile confiscation of debts till 1737, was never ques- 
tioned, nor was the right denied in 1752, in the discussions on 
the Silesia loan ; notwithstanding the doubts of Hamilton in 
Camillus, and of Vattel, whose authority Judge Story, not with- 
out reason, cited Mcintosh for disparaging. Confiscation of hos- 
tile debts is the doctrine, said the judge, not only of national, but 



80 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

the English common law, notwithstanding the modern relaxation 
of merely suspending them, which does not impair the right to 
seize, however odious. The law to seize hostile things in pos- 
session, (and he made no distinction between things and per- 
sons,) Judge Story argued is still clearer than that of debts. 
He reckoned Grotius, Puffendorf, Bynkershoeck, Burlemqui, 
Rutherforth, and Hale, among its advocates, denying that 
Vattel and Azuni can be fairly cited against it. Even Magna 
Charta, which he canvassed, protects only domiciled, not tran- 
sitory foreign merchants, or their property, and is, in practice, 
disregarded by England, who has uniformly, he truly averred, 
seized, as prize, all vessels and cargoes of her enemies found in 
British ports at the commencement of hostilities ; and in con- 
templation of hostilities laid embargoes, that she might, at all 
events, secure the prey, (as he called such booty,) a belligerent 
right, recognised as early as 1665, among the droits of admi- 
ralty. This sunimum jus, he declared, so far from being obso- 
lete, was constantly applied by Great Britain to the United 
States in the war of 1812, with the aggravation of detaining 
American seamen, found in her service when it began. Judge 
Story might have gone further, and said, in the same spirit of 
patriotic emotion Avhich animated this part of his judgment, 
that Great Britain, for the last century of these modern times, 
which he supposed had mitigated the code of war, has frequently, ' 
if not mostly, made it first, not declaring it till after the blow 
was struck with dire severity ; and that many thousands of the 
American seamen, detained as prisoners, as he mentioned, were 
impressed from American vessels, in defiance of the protection 
of their flag, documents, and nativity. 

Right to capture thus established, and acknowledging that 
Congress exercise the sovereignty of the nation in the right to 
declare war, he insisted that the executive, as incident to the 
presidential ofiice, independent of any express authority by the 
act declaring war, is empowered to employ all the usual 
and customary means acknoAvledged in war to carry it into 
eft'ect ; and there being no limitation in the act of Congress, 
the president may authorize the capture of all enemies' pro- 
perty wherever, by the law of nations, it can be lawfully seized. 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 81 

Without grant bj Congress all such captures, in his opinion, 
must enure to the use of government. The executive may, 
and docs employ the land forces, by virtue of the declaration 
of "war, to make captures, without doubt of their legality ; and 
captures by commissioned ships seem a natural result of the 
generality of expression in the act of Congress; upon which 
the executive may authorise proceedings to enforce confiscation 
of captures before the proper tribunals. 

After the Supreme Court reversed his decision, still tenacious 
of it, with honest confidence he disclaimed an opinion that decla- 
ration of war operates confiscation of property ; admitting, as 
he said he always did, that the title to it is not divested by war, 
but remains unimpaired till hostile possession ; all he contended 
for was, that war gives a right to confiscate, enabling the execu- 
tive to enforce it. If a limit can be put on the extent to which 
hostilities may be carried by the executive, he cannot transcend 
it : but if no such limit be imposed, war may be waged, accord- 
ing to the modern law of nations, when, where, and as the 
executive chooses. Congress by no act have declared confisca- 
tion, the right of which Judge Story deemed to result from the 
state of war, not any statute. Until title divested by overt 
act of government and judicial sentence, it remains in the ori- 
ginal owner, and revives by peace. The prize acts, and hostile 
trade acts of Congress, with others empowering and directing 
the president what to do, did not limit his pre-existing power, 
but simply regulated it. There being no act of the Legislature 
defining the powers, objects, or modes of warfare, by what rule 
can the president be governed but by the law of nations, ap- 
plied to the state of war ? The sovereignty of the nation rests 
with him as to execution of the laws, and he may exercise 
whatever is legitimate hostility according to the law of nations, 
in his discretion, which, from the nature of things, must vary 
according to the annoyance and pressure necessary. The Le- 
gislature may limit this right if they will. The power of Con- 
gress to declare war, in Judge Story's opinion, includes all the 
poAvers incident to war, and necessary to carry it into effect. 
The power in the constitution to grant letters of marque, and 
make rules concerning captures, is not substantive, but part of 

Vol. IIL — 6 



82 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

the power of war. Authority to grant letters of marque and 
reprisal, and to regulate captures, are ordinary and necessary 
incidents to the power of declaring w^ar, which would be inef- 
fectual without them. They are merely explanatory and pre- 
cautionary words in the constitution. Congress have not de- 
clared that captures shall be made on land : if not included in 
the declaration of war, how can the president direct such ? 
How can a Canadian campaign or conquest of a British terri- 
tory take place under executive orders ? The acts of Congress 
respecting alien and prisoner enemies are but regulations of 
war, conferring no new authority. Judge Story repudiated 
the suggestion that he asserts that modern usage constitutes a 
rule acting directly on the thing, by its own force, not through 
the sovereign power ; his position was, that when the Legislature 
declares unlimited war, the executive is bound to carry it into 
effect. The sovereignty as to declaring war and limiting its 
effects is with the Legislature, and as to its execution, with the 
president. If the Legislature do not limit, all the rights of 
war attach. 

His conclusions were that the court had jurisdiction, and that 
the district attorney, without specific instruction, was competent 
to institute it ex-officio ; that by the modern law of nations, 
and the common law of England, governments confiscate debts, 
credits, and property of enemies contracted or come into the 
country during peace ; that right to confiscate need not be 
specifically given by act of Congress, because the president, 
by high prerogative, may control, and the courts adjudicate, 
by virtue of the act of Congress declaring war. 

The district judge of Massachusetts, Davis, an experienced, 
intelligent and careful magistrate (who made application to 
Congress, through the judiciary committee, for increase of 
salary, because such was the pressure of business in his 
court, during the war, that it was obliged to be in session 
nearly every day in the whole year, except Sundays), gave 
judgment in this case contrary to Judge Story's, which latter, 
in some points, was not appealed from. The great questions 
here dwelt upon were submitted to the Supreme Court, without 
an argument, by Richard Rush, then lately appointed to sue- 



WAR LAW. 83 

cc-cd Pinkney as attorney-general, leaving it upon that of 
Judge Story, which was contained in the transcript of the 
record. The advocate contesting it, invoked the liberal law of 
nations, divested of antiquated rigors, not only rejected, but 
abhorred, in modern law ; denied confiscation of debts and non- 
commissioned seizure of property ; and indignantly reprobated 
the intolerable hostilities which Avould send law officers into the 
warehouses of American seaports, hunting for enemies' things, 
received in peace, but happening to be caught in war. 

The judgment of the Supreme Court was pronounced by Chief- 
Justice Marshall, entertaining no doubt of the power of govern- 
ment. War gives the sovereign full right to take the persons 
and confiscate the property of the enemy, wherever found ; a 
right not impaired, though mitigated in practice by wise and 
humane modern policy. Where the sovereign authority brings 
it into operation, the judicial department must give effect to its 
will ; but, until that is expressed, no power of condemnation is 
in the court. Declaration of war by act of Congress does not, 
by its own operation, vest enemies' property in the American 
government, but only a right, whose operation depends on the 
will of the sovereign power. The universal practice of forbear- 
ing to seize and confiscate debts and credits, the principle uni- 
versally received that the original right to them revives on 
restoration of peace, seems to prove that war is not absolute 
confiscation, but simply confers a right to it. Reason draws no 
distinction between debts contracted on the faith of laws, and 
property acquired in course of trade. Though vessels and car- 
goes found in port at the declaration of war may have been 
seized, yet modern usage would not sanction seizure of enemies' 
goods on land, acquired by trade in peace. The right is the 
same, as to debts and property, whatever be the practice. The 
chief-justice quoted Bynkershoeck, Vattel and Chitty to shew the 
modern rule that tangible hostile property, found by war in a 
country, ought not to be immediately confiscated ; and added 
that, in almost every commercial treaty, there is stipulation of 
right to withdraw it. Thus it is the opinion of all, that, while 
war gives the right to confiscation, it does not confiscate. 

The Constitution of the United States was framed when this 



84 WAR LAW. 

rule, introduced by commerce in favor of moderation and hu- 
manity, Avas received throughout the civilized world. Ex- 
pounding it ought not lightly to give war an effect in this 
country which it has not elsewhere, fettering the exercise of 
entire discretion respecting hostile property, of which govern- 
ment may apply to the enemy the rules he applies to us. The 
constitutional enumeration of powers gives declaration of war 
no operation transferring property, usually produced by ulte- 
rior measures ; it only places two nations in a state of hostility, 
and gives the rights which war confers. The power to regu- 
late captures cannot be restricted to such as are extra-terri- 
torial : but it is a substantive power not included in that of 
declaring war. War gives equal right over person and pro-' 
perty ; yet Congress prescribe rules to the President concern- 
ing alien enemies and prisoners, and for governing trade with 
enemies. Then the act declaring war undoubtedly not enact- 
ing confiscation, the power of confiscating enemies' property 
within the United States at the declaration of war remained in 
the legislature without expression of its will ; and the property 
in question was unlawfully condemned. As to the argument 
that, in execution of the laws of war, the executive may seize, 
and the courts condemn, though it might require legislation to 
justify it, the court denied that modern usage constitutes a rule 
acting on the thing by its own force, and not through the sove- 
reign power. This usage is a guide which the sovereign follows 
or abandons at will. It is like other precepts of morality, hu- 
manity or wisdom, addressed to the sovereign's judgment ; not 
to be disregarded without obloquy, but not binding ; flexible, 
subject to infinite modification, depending on perpetually vary- 
ing political considerations. What shall be done with property 
caught by war is a question of policy, for the consideration, in 
the United States, of a department which can vary it at will, 
the legislature ; not of the executive or judiciary, which can 
pursue the law only as written. 

The chief-justice also repeated the common, perhaps uni- 
versal, war doctrine of retaliation ; that the rule which we 
apply to the property of an enemy, he will apply to us ; the 
existence of which cannot be denied, though it may be depre- 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 85 

catcd, as a judicial, however necessary as a legislative or ex- 
ecutive, principle. War, begun for some alleged injury, often 
transcends to the revenge of others involved by the strife of 
combatants, which shall do the other most harm. The original 
cause is lost sight of in bloody conflict, raging for mastery or 
from malice, forgetful of all right and reason, and ending, as 
was the case of our war of 1812, by mere accidental cessation 
of original causes. 

Law is commonly considered more uncertain than other sci- 
ences ; but, except the exact, which of them is not liable to 
contradiction, disproof and fluctuation ? Law is as certain as 
any metaphysics. JNIuch of the nebulous in American political 
jurisprudence is occasioned by blindly following the murky 
lights of England exclusively, instead of contemplating the 
whole firmament of jurisprudence, and creating for the new 
world a congenial sphere. It is always easier to read than to 
think ; and generally safer to follow than lead. In international 
and maritime law, the laws of war, peace, and commerce, Ame- 
rican reverence of Enghsh precedent has predominated. War 
was rufiian violence, till Grotius civilized it ; and it ought to 
be the mission of this country to extend, further than he con- 
templated, the benign refinements of which it is susceptible, 
especially by sea. The doctrines of the armed neutrality of 
1780, just preceding the recognised independence of the United 
States, of which our English enemy was the only antagonist, as 
they refused her the sovereignty of the ocean, marked an 
era not new in the law of nations, but only in its revivaL 
American treaties had recognized a code of international and 
maritime regulations of commerce and navigation, which pos- 
terior negotiation, legislation and adjudication need but com- 
plete, to confer lasting and inestimable benefits on mankind, 
by preventing, abridging and humanizing hostilities, promoting 
and strengthening pacific principles. The fundamental wrong 
has been sufi'ering the strong to inflict on the weak a predomi- 
nance of war over peace, postponing the eternal rights of peace 
to the fitful lusts of war, which law should never sanction. In 
Europe, mandates from government control courts of admiralty, 
which judges are compelled to obey. But it never should be 



86 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

allowed to coui'ts of justice to commit acts of hostility against 
foreign nations. That power, in all countries, belongs to some 
other department of the government ; and although the acts 
of a court may sometimes be the remote causes of war, just or 
unjust, on the part of a foreign nation, yet a power to commit 
a direct act of hostility can never be properly lodged in that 
department. But the federal judiciary, during the war of 
1812, incorporated with American law the war-waging tenden- 
cies of the English, endangering further conflicts with neutrals 
whenever the United States are involved in war. Scott, the 
brilliant propagator of war law, v/^as their fixed star, while the 
journals and resolutions of the Congress of the Revolution, with 
their rich mines of information, their excellent instructions to 
superior negotiators who represented the United States in Eu- 
rope, the continental and the conventional law of nations, were 
overlooked or disregarded. Insular naval supremacy, pervert- 
ing and aggravating maritime codes, to usurp the mastery of 
the ocean, in continual contest, from when Selden's Mare 
Clausum opposed Grotius's liberty of the sea, to the period of 
Scott's supremacy, was the model of American judicature. 

The precedents for a better code were of great authority. 
The American treaty with France, signed by Franklin, Deane, 
and Lee, the 6th of February, 1778, Avith Franklin's modifica- 
tion of the 1st of September of that year ; Adams's treaty with 
the Netherlands, of the 8th of October, 1782 ; Franklin's treaty 
with Sweden of the 3d April, 1783 ; Franklin, Adams, and 
Jefierson's treaty with Prussia, of 1785, laid the broad and ex- 
cellent bases of a system of international and maritime harmony, 
which it ought to be the destiny as well as policy of this country 
and its great glory, as it began, to perpetuate. By these 
pledges of constant equality and good-will reciprocated with 
powerful seafaring nations, perfect order was established, all 
burdensome preferences discarded as the common causes of 
debate, embarrassment, and discontent, leaving each party to 
make, respecting commerce and navigation, those interior regu- 
lations most convenient to itself. The advantage of commerce 
was founded solely upon reciprocal utility, and the just rules 
of free intercourse, reserving to every nation the liberty of 



IXTERNATIONAL LAW. 87 

admitting, at its pleasure, other nations to a participation of 
tlie same advantages. No particular favor of commerce or 
navigation was to be granted to one nation over another. 
What has come to be since well known and extended as the 
reciprocity principle was introduced. Protection by convoy 
was afforded when desirable. Enumeration and reduction of 
contraband articles, that perilous product of wanton war, fol- 
lowed stipulation for six months' allowance after declaration of 
it, for sale and removal of property. Private cruising commis- 
sions from third parties were prohibited, the first step in the 
most odious, but, for the United States, the cheapest and most 
effectual sinister arm of marine hostility. Unmolested trade 
was allowed between enemies and neutrals. Not only should 
free ships make free goods, that greatest of all restorations of 
the true law of nations, founded in reason and consecrated by 
numerous treaties ; but even all hostile persons, except soldiers, 
were freed from interruption in neutral vessels by those of war. 
What has been usurped as the miscalled right of search, and 
its bastard twin, forcible visitation, were qualified by requiring 
ships-of-war to stay out of cannon-shot and send a boat to 
board merchant vessels, with no more than two or three men, 
on showing to whom the prescribed passport the merchant 
vessel was at liberty to pursue her voyage without molestation, 
search, chase, or forcing her to quit her intended coiu'se. All 
goods on board a vessel Mere exempt from visitation ; visiting 
and searching were to precede loading, and vessels were not to 
be embargoed, or their owners arrested afterwards. These noble 
meliorations of international law were triumphs produced by the 
victory of Saratoga, which enabled Franklin to arrange with a 
French ministry, instinct with the embryo principles of Turgot's 
political economy, their incorporation with international inter- 
course. Such noblemen as Turgot and La Fayette, enlightened 
by the good sense of universal benevolence, imbued with the 
spirit even if disowning the divinity of Christian charity, patron- 
ised the poor suitors of despised America ; by arms and treaties 
encouraging a forlorn but fortunate insurrection. A wonderful 
people, as Washington termed the French, the same inconstant 
race who are yet exactly as characterised by Ciiesar, ahvays 



»» INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

changing, still the same, were then Avhispering to dull king?, 
and their blind ministers, those marvellous changes of 
polity which have since shaken the world to its centre. Louis 
XVI. — who lived like a fool, and did he die like a saint ? — was 
the only man in his kingdom, except Turgot, who loved the 
people; "for who," asked Voltaire, "loves the people?" 
_^ With court, cabinet, camarilla, capital, and country, all ripe 
to rottenness, Franklin dealt, and Jefferson succeeded him ; 
both new men from the new world ; grave, gay, profound, and 
captivating apostles of its political discoveries, romantic essays, 
and progressive philosophy. Entertained by, and entertaining 
a people of dancers and mathematicians, cooks and chemists, 
soldiers and moralists, a plain American printer became the 
fashion ; and getting the vogue, with steady hand and far-seeing 
glance, steered onward to, not his own alone, but his country's 
and mankind's, improvement. Voltaire, the master workman 
of French progress, who would have resisted and probably fallen 
under, had he lived to see the whirlwind of which he sowed 
the wind, courted by wits, feared by courts, admired by philo- 
sophers, adored by deists,* idolised by women, wished to become 
acquainted with a transatlantic sage, so unlike the French ; and 
stammering a few words of broken English, tried to speak "the 
language of Franklin." .An irresolute and vacillating monarch, 
surrounded by dissolute courtiers, making epigrams and ana- 
grams, and futile ministers attempting^ by paltry parsimony, to 
save from revolution a kingdom so little burdened with debt that 
any efficient economist might have extinguished it, were raAV 
materials of the work, which Franklin helped to begin and 
Jefferson to finish. Songs, jokes, and riddles, filling the saloons 
of Paris and Versailles, were the chief occupation of the chief 
men, while the wary American commissioner, not received as a 
foreign minister, retired at the modest village of Passy, adroitly 
inoculated susceptible France, not with confusion, rebellion, 
crime and confiscation ; but economy, equality, liberty, and 
peace ; beneficence, to be preceded by distressing severities, 
but developed throughout the population of France in greatly 
raising the degraded poor, usefully levelling the exalted, and 
e(i[ualizing the property and condition of all. History must 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 89 

declare that Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and others who ma- 
triculated in Europe the principles of American government, 
by fortunate contagion of the personal and trivial impressions 
always so important in the affairs of mankind, prevailed on the 
greatest nation of continental Europe, oppressed, impoverished, 
and weakly governed, to counteract England, not only by arms, 
but laws, treaties, codes, and systems of oeconomy, all tending 
to peace, order, and utility. Treaties with France, the Nether- 
lands, Sweden, and Prussia, all counteractive of British naval 
pretensions, discountenanced marine hostilities, stripped of their 
transcendentalism beyond those of land warfare, are monu- 
ments of American revival of eternal principles of justice and 
humanity. / 

The first monarch of Europe having adopted them, they 
were proclaimed by the republican Dutch, at the mast-head of 
an admirable marine, and in the marts of the most industrious^ 
economical, and wealthiest merchants. The northern nurseries 
of mariners likewise declared them ; as the great Frederick, 
reposing on the laurels of incredible exploits, contemptuously 
independent of both France and Great Britain, added to the 
free code the sanction of his imposing authority. Refuting the 
lawyers and denying the law of England, by confiscation of the 
Silesia loan, Frederick gave his adhesion to laws of nations ac- 
knowledged by sages, and for ages, till supplanted by British 
interpolations ; the common law of European nations, till 
England, with insular interests and naval control, combated 
and suppressed them. 

The war of 1812, without the protection of any common law 
against offences or the indispensable basis of an inferior magis- 
tracy for its support, depended for the administration of justice 
on the small judicial hierarchy of some eighteen district judges, 
and seven judges of the Supreme Court, who, without commis- 
sio)'.;- us circuit judges, assumed on their several circuits the 
powers, and performed the duties, of chancellors, judges at com- 
mon law, of admiralty and criminal law, mostly with juries; deter- 
mining the various controversies, territorial, maritime, personal, 
fiscal, commercial, public and private, foreign and domestic, of 
a jurisdiction, sometimes concurrent with the state judicatures. 



90 SUPREME COURT. 

but generally exclusive. War taxes, captures, and questions, 
added much to tlieir powers and labors. Yet I believe every 
case was determined without delay, mostly with laudable expe- 
dition; and the judiciary altogether, especially the Supreme 
Court, were respected for impartiality, diligence, learning and 
personal independence. 

On the 11th of March, 1815, the Supreme Court adjourned 
after a session of six weeks, during which their docket was 
cleared of sixty cases, some of great importance. Since then, 
in no department has the American government more outgrown 
-its original dimensions than the judicial. The annual appro- 
priation by Congress, in 1815, was forty thousand dollars for 
defraying the expenses of the federal courts, jurors, witnesses, 
prosecutions and prisoners. In 1848, the appropriation for 
the same objects, was four hundred and forty-three thousand 
dollars. The constitution of the United States laudably framed 
for an independent judiciary, without which property and society 
are insecure, goes beyond the English model by an irresponsible 
judicial tenure. While the judiciary of the Union is almost 
irresponsible, the tendency to popular or factious decline, mis- 
called progress, has degraded most of the state judicatures to 
partizan elections : antagonistic extravagance in both federal 
and state constitutions. 

Without common law, or ancillary magistracy, eighteen dis- 
trict judges, dishevelled over the vast territories of the United 
States, had war law to initiate in a country which had never 
been at war during the lifetime of most of them. Over them, 
seven magistrates, appointed and commissioned judges of the 
Supreme Court, assuming circuit jurisdiction, stood on a narrow 
and barren isthmus of written laws, to create American admi- 
ralty and American prize law : most of whom had never seen the 
sea, or perhaps a ship ; and only one was versed in maritime liti- 
gation. Brockholst Livingston, of the city of New York, member 
of an eminent family, selected by President Jeflerson for the 
Supreme Court, had been extensively employed collaterally, 
though never directly, in resistance to British law of blockade, 
contraband, search and other inflictions, Avhich at last provoked 
resistance by war. William Johnson, 



SUPREME COURT. 91 

Carolina, another of President Jefferson's judicial appoint- 
ments, with some little marine experience, was likewise of the 
politics opposed to British domination, Thomas Todd, of the 
same politics, but of Kentucky, honest and laborious, was a 
land lawyer, to whom sea law was terra incognita. Bushrod 
Washington, of Virginia, and the chief justice, John MarshaH, 
of the same state, intimate friends, of federal politics, ap- 
pointed by President Adams, had neither of them any expe- 
rience of admiralty laAV. The chief justice, with superior 
abilities, simple, plain, almost rustic but winning manners, a 
genius for constitutional polemics, and the influence of long 
judicial presidency, but neither learned nor studious, was too 
old, in 1812, to begin the study of new branches of jurispru- 
dence, to him not only new, but strange and revolting. For 
his nature was too kind to relish, and he was therefore the 
more slow to comprehend, the harsh British sea code, which in 
practice was star-chamber, and in principles, from the era of 
Selden's Mare Clausum to that of Scott's admiralty droits, a 
dark age system of belligerent exclusion and inhuman depre- 
dation. One of Pinkney's side-bar, saucy whispers, when 
complaining that he could not hammer it into Marshall's head, 
was that the chief justice had a marvellous inaptitude for ad- 
miralty law. Brockholst Livingston sympathized in Marshall's 
aversion to supplant the liberal benignity of common British 
and American law by exparte rules of inquisitorial, merciless, 
and universal maritime condemnation. They could admure 
Scott's epigrammatic argumentation Avithout adopting his 
grasping rapacity. 

But from the burning focus of infm-iate hostility to the war, 
and the head-quarters of privateers, the town of Salem, 
represented in Congress by Pickering, came forth a young 
judge, with a war-besom in hand, to sweep prize-money into 
the purse of every sea-rover. When Judge Cushing, after 
long incumbency on the bench of the Supreme Court, died, 
President Madison had to find a successor, who must be of Ncav 
England, and opposed to the rancorous politics of that into- 
lerant centre of intelligence — some war democrat. John Quincy 
Adams was nominated and confirmed ; for he complained of 



92 SUPREME COURT. 

the expenses of his Russian mission, and his friends at homo 
solicited relief. But he had set his thoughts on succeeding his 
father in the presidency; and though for some months a judge 
without knowing it, refused the appointment as soon as ap- 
prised. Then, after long and doubtful search throughout all 
Kew England, to find a man of the politics, the character and 
the promise required, finally Joseph Story was pitched upon. 
Quite a yoxmg lawyer, not much more than thirty years of age, 
appointed a few months before war was declared, he undertook 
the most maritime and the most disafiected of all the circuits, 
where seaports, enterprise and opposition to government most 
abounded. Young, ardent, studious, indefatigable, but more 
of a reader than a thinker. Judge Story, with infinite research, 
sounded all the depths of admiralty law, and introduced British 
doctrines, both jurisprudential and constitutional, to which the 
chief justice could never be reconciled, and some of which the 
Supreme Court rejected, but not all ; for the British influence 
was overpowering sometimes, when the authority was disowned. 
On the same day when Story was appointed, a respectable, 
discreet and elderly gentleman of Maryland, Gabriel Duvall, 
was commissioned to succeed Judge Chase in the Supreme 
Court. Judge Duvall had been Presidents Jefierson and Madi- 
son's comptroller of the treasury, which chancellorship fami- 
liarized him with revenue law. But marine controversies were 
almost as strange to Judge Duvall as to Judge Todd. The United 
States had taken up arms against British maritime law ; and 
no English adjudication, since 1776, was authority in an Ame- 
rican court. The opposite of English law, consecrated by 
many, if not all the treaties of the United States ; American 
admiralty law, as far as adjudicated during and after the Re- 
volution ; institutionary law, as announced by resolves of Con- 
gress, and the whole pubHshed laws of nations, constituted, alto- 
gether, a code for the guidance of the federal judiciary not to 
be rashly overruled or wholly disregarded. Yet, while the 
executive and the legislature, the army, the navy, the militia, 
and the nation of the United States, were, with all their 
might, waging war against British sea law, it was judicially 
adopted as the only American jurisprudence. 



SUPREME COURT. 93 

Judge Story, often difFering with Mtirsliall and Livingston, 
propounded, and with the attorney-general, Pinkney, founded 
the British prize code. William Pinkney, of Maryland, was 
the leading lawyer of his day. Appointed by President AVash- 
ington one of the commissioners under Jay's treaty, and having 
spent several years in London, his occupation there induced 
him to frequent the admiralty courts, where he witnessed the 
cloudy setting of the admiralty judge, Marriott, indecently 
scoffing at American resistance to British maritime depreda- 
tion, and the rise of his brilliant successor, Scott, displaying 
his powerful talents and obsequious phancy by masterly vindi- 
cation of sea despotism, against which the whole of Europe 
protested and resisted, till the United States, at last, when all 
the rest were vanquished, reluctantly went to war for their 
rescue. When Ethan Allen once attended Marriott's court as 
a suitor, absmxUy dressed in regimentals, accompanied by the 
American minister, Rufus King, the judge, by impertinence as 
much out of place as the costume, ridiculed the American 
officer while deciding against him. Scott's elegant decrees 
sometimes betrayed the same contemptuous national aversion. 
There is reason to believe that he wrote the British war mani- 
festo, published in January, 1813, coarsely abusive of this 
country, its government and cause. [See Vol. I. p. 476-7.] 
It is certain that he wrote, for the ministry, their answer to 
Quincy Adams's argument for the free navigation of the river 
St. Lawrence. The two Scots, Lords Stowell and Eldon, 
charmed a lunatic king by parasite loyalty. To his surrepti- 
tious private royal revenues, the admiralty judge, by admiralty 
droits, and other such confiscations, largely contributed. Pre- 
rogative had no more servile advocates, in all its extravagances, 
than the chancellor and his brother. 

In their courts Pinkney studied law ; and, instead of frivo- 
lous pastimes while in England, added constant application to 
that classical literature, by which StOAvell adorned his elegant 
decrees, which Eldon shunned lest it should contaminate his, 
or lessen his emoluments, and by which Pinkney shone Avith a 
lustre not common in America. Returned from England, he 
found his count rv indisrnant ajzainst fm'ther endurance of 



94 SUPREME COURT. 

British maritime law, her inflictions of blockade, search, im- 
pressment, contraband and resuscitated colonial rules. The 
merchants urged war ; which they finally compelled the repre- ' 
sented yeomanry to declare. Every seaport sent its flaming 
appeal to government, written by some eminent lawyer. Distin- 
guished above the rest by his, for Baltunore, Pinkney was select- 
ed by President Jefferson to go back again to England, and 
remonstrate against what Scott justified. There, with Monroe, 
signing a treaty without providing against impressment, Jefibr- • 
son would not even ask the Senate's advice on such a litany. 
Returning home once more. President Madison, to whom Jeffer- 
son bequeathed the war, was glad to avail his administration of 
Mr. Pinkney's commanding abilities as attorney-general of the 
United States. He wrote the act of Congress declaring war ; 
and he fought and was wounded, as he said of General Winder, 
" as became a gentleman," at the battle of Bladensburg ; while 
with Judge Story inoculating the Supreme Court with the virus 
of Scott's prize law. Professional anchorite law books were his 
only company. Never ventm-ing to appear in court till perfect 
master of his case, he studied not only what might be said forj 
but what against it. Then, dressed in the extreme of foreign 
fashion, boldly announced law, and most accurately detailed facts ; 
his lucid statements all solid arguments. Bude to opponents, 
with homage of the court, learned in all law, predominant in 
prize law, he led majorities of the Supreme Court; the greatest 
lawyer. Judge Livingston said, (who had known them all, and 
often dissented from Pinkney's postulates,)of the American bar. 
Vain too, like Erskine, for whom Pinkney professed profound 
admiration, he said to a Senator, alluding to the constancy and 
intensity of his professional labors — " Yes, I am, as you say, 
at the head of the bar, but no one knows what it costs to keep 
me there." It was said that he committed his speeches to 
memory. But that was impossible, for he made too many in a 
time too short to admit of it. Occasional passages he may 
have so prepared, as the chief justice gently intimated when 
noticing his figure of the chartered libertine. 

With Story and Pinkney, joined in idolatry of Scott, was the re- 
porter of the court, Henry Wheaton, intimate with Judge Story. 



SUPREME COURT. 95 

Judge Cranch, who, for more than fifty years, has been chief 
justice of the federal district, relinquished the reportership of 
the Supreme Court towards the end of the war, and was suc- 
ceeded by Wheaton, then editor of the National Advocate, an 
efficient democratic newspaper, afterwards for many years 
American minister in Prussia, author of a useful treatise on 
prize law, and several valuable works on the law of nations. 
By that triumvirate. Story, Pinkney, and Wheaton, the British 
practice in prize law, and many of its un-English principles, 
were engrafted upon American judicature. 

Macintosh, in parliament, applauded the American govern- 
ment for beginning the war of 1812, by disowning the rapacious 
hostilities of modern England, and preferring the beneficent old 
English common law ; which, by the great charter of British 
liberty, gave time for those involved in the perils of war to 
withdraw their effects from an enemy's country. Canning, 
little given to American eulogy in that war, afterwards, in the 
house of commons, pronounced AVashington's and Jefferson's 
principles of neutrality those most worthy of British adoption. 
Proud as Americans are naturally prone to be of British com- 
mendation, such acknowledgments are grateful atonement for 
much unmerited censure and contumely. Story, I believe, is 
the only American judge ever extolled in England, perhaps 
ever known there. And although the Supreme Court, as be- 
fore mentioned, overruled his decree reversing Magna Charta, 
and allowing admiralty droits, yet it is not easy to extract 
from among the frequent divisions of opinion of the judges of 
that court in banc, what prize law is as adjudicated during that 
war. 

Admiralty droits, an enormity of prerogative hardly endured 
in England, would be monstrous in this country. Hume, cer- 
tainly no censor of the Stuart kings, acknowledges that Charles 
the Second, in 16(34, ordered Admiral Lawson, without right 
or pretext, to surprise and seize 135 Dutch merchant vessels, 
preliminary to war, not declared till the next year, by which 
means the plunder of those prizes condemned as droits passed 
into the royal coffers for parasites and prostitutes. Admiral 
Cochrane, who commanded the British fleets in America, in 



96 PRIZE LAW. 

1814-15, and signed the proclamations, one to induce a servile 
revolt, the other avowing inhuman hostilities, seized, in 1804, 
off Cadiz, without prior declaration or notice of war, three 
large Spanish vessels, returning from America, and sunk a 
fourth, all loaded with treasure, of which booty, after being 
carted through the streets of London, to the delight of the po- 
pulace, four millions of dollars worth were condemned by Sir 
William Scott as admiralty droits, and converted to the pur- 
poses of George the Third. 

In 1807, a still more stupendous and iniquitous acquisition 
of admiralty droits was effected by the capture of Copenhagen, 
in profound peace, by a British fleet, of which Admiral Gam- 
bier, afterwards chosen to negotiate the treaty of Ghent, and 
Jackson, an English minister in this country, dismissed for in- 
solence just before the war of 1812, Avere among the naval and 
diplomatic perpetrators. Sixteen sail-of-the-line, nine frigates, 
fourteen sloops of war, and other vessels, seized and taken to 
England, laden with materials from the arsenal ; ninety-two 
cargoes in transports, and other vessels, whose burthen, alto- 
gether, exceeded twenty thousand tons ; after burning several 
ships-of-the-line, and frigates on the stocks, four hundred 
houses, churches, and universities, with thousands of non-com- 
batants surprised in profound peace — ^were the crown droits on 
that occasion. Denmark's activity in exciting the armed neu- 
trality of 1780, (more than a quarter of a century before,) 
caused suspicion of the crown-prince's neutrality, said a 
British annalist. And at all events, whatever may be thought 
of the policy and justice of the expedition, there can be, he 
adds, but one sentiment of the inhumanity of the crown-prince, 
in permitting his subjects to offer liopeless resistance to British 
arms ! 

In the House of Lords, in February, 1783, debating the pre- 
liminary articles of peace between Great Britain, France and' 
the United States, one of the members, Loughborough, ven- 
turing to cite the opinions of Vattel and Puffendorff, was 
sharply rebuked by the chancellor, Thurlow, for resorting to 
the lucubrations and fancies of foreign writers, and referring 
British senators to Swiss authors for explanation of the prero- 



PRIZE LAW. 97 

gativc of the crown. The chancellor rejected all foreign hooks 
on that point. However ingenious Mr. Vattel or Mr. Puffen- 
dorff might be on the law of nations, he denied their authority, 
and exploded their evidence, to explain the authority of the 
British crown. 

Just so Judge Story repudiated the same counsellors. " The 
practice of this court," he said, "must be governed by the 
rules of admiralty law, disclosed in English reports, in pre- 
ference to the mere dicta of elementary writers ; though he 
thought it his duty to notice those authorities." And when 
American treaties were cited, and among them one with Eng- 
land, mitigating the extreme infliction of hostile confiscation, 
the judge treated them as exceptions, not the rule. But what 
higher evidence can there be of international law than trea- 
ties ? — fruits of the studies of the wisest statesmen embodied 
in supreme laws. Franklin's treaty of Versailles, and Jay's 
treaty of London, consecrate principles, and impress nations, 
far beyond the fascinating rhetoric of Scott's decrees. Bri- 
tish belligerent practice rejects ancient fecial law, and all 
declaration, manifesto or notice of war, till first executed by 
hostilities. The war of 1756, which involved America, where 
most of it was waged, began by Captain Howe, afterwards the 
admiral, with the frigates Dunkirk and Defiance surprising and 
capturing the French vessels Lys and Defiance, by which seven 
hundred thousand pounds sterling were snatched as admiralty 
droits — as iniquitous as piratical plunder. Since then, in all 
her many wars, Great Britain, as at the rupture of the peace 
of Amiens, has struck first and explained afterwards. AYhereas 
the United States cannot make war without solemn declaration. 
Indeed, is there English law of nations ? beyond the British con- 
stitution, traditional and disputed transactions. According to 
American understanding, there is a law of nations manifested 
by general acceptance, and equal for all ; some, by Wolf's 
simile, giants, and others dwarfs, but all equals; and each 
bound, as by common law, to do each other as much good in 
peace, and as little harm in war, as may be consistent with 
their owa interests. Such are the laws of neutrality and of 
war which govern the United States, ^d which it is their inte- 

Vol. III.— 7 



98 PRIZE LAW. 

rest to maintain, "I trust," said Richard Stockton, one of 
the ablest lawyers and leading members of Congress, never 
charged with British aversions, addressing the Supreme 
Court in 1814, " this court is not prepared to adopt, even with 
respect to neutrals, much less with respect to American citi- 
zens, the rigid rules of the British court of admiralty, a mere 
political court, a prerogative court, regulated by the king's 
orders in council, designed to give Great Britain the sove- 
reignty of the ocean, to subject the whole commerce of the 
world to her grasp, and to make the law of nations just what 
her policy would wish it to be." " The law of nations," said 
Chief Justice Marshall, on the same occasion, " is founded on 
the great and immutable principles of equity and natural jus- 
tice. I respect Su' William Scott, as I do every truly great 
man, and I respect his decisions ; nor should I depart from 
them on slight grounds. But it is impossible to consider them 
attentively, without perceiving that his mind was strongly in 
favor of the captors. In a great maritime country, depending 
on its navy for its glory and its safety, the national bias is 
perhaps so strongly in this direction, that the judge, without 
being conscious of the fact, must feel its influence. However 
this may be, it is a fact of which I am fully convinced ; and on 
this account, it appears to me to be the more proper to inves- 
tigate rigidly the principles on which his decisions have been 
made, and not to extend them, where such extension may pro- 
duce injustice." In the first case argued by Chief Justice 
Marshall, when at the bar, in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, an eminent judge, who had been one of the founders 
of the Constitution of the United States, Wilson, deprecating 
the harsh and odious inflictions on America of antiquated Eu- 
ropean law, insisted that " when the United States declared 
their independence, they were bound to receive the law of 
nations in its modern state of purity and refinement." 

The federal Court of Appeals, in 1781, before the Con- 
stitution settled many of the great principles which in, 
and even by, the Supreme Court of the United States, in 
1812, it was attempted to overthrow, capture without com- 
mission, and mere forcible seizure without adjudication, were 



PRIZE LAW. 99 

both lieM invalid. The noble and cardinal principles, that a 
state of nature is a state of peace, and not a state of war, 
and that nations are morally bound to preserve peace and 
benevolence, and amity to be presumed, were doctrines laid 
do^n with the foundations of American jurisprudence. Nor 
did tlic federal Court of Appeals stop short of affirming the 
ordinances of Congress, by which free ships make free goods; 
and neutral rights were acknowledged as established by the 
armed neutrality of 1780 : likewise the resolutions of April, 
1Y81, forbidding American cruisers to capture neutral vessels, 
unless employed in carrying contraband or soldiers to the ene- 
mies of the United States, or effects belonging to subjects of 
the belligerents on board of neutral vessels, except contraband 
goods. The court conceding the right of search, yet qualified 
even that ; first, limiting it to time of -war, and, secondly, to 
subjects of an enemy. To search a neutral, they say, is 
always at the peril of the belligerent, who has no right to 
seize without good grounds, and is liable to damages for any 
mistake. 

Thus restrained, qualified and explained, the so called right 
of search at sea is no more than that of any officer ashore, 
without warrant, to arrest on suspicion ; — in fact no right at 
all, but an assumption, on all the actors' responsibility. 
, In spite of prior adjudications, of publicists, of treaties, of 
Congress, and of war, however, British influence prevailed. The 
mother country was the firmament on high, and Scott the cyno- 
sure by which the American judiciary steered. The eloquence 
of his decrees, Mr. Wheaton's treatise declared, required their 
adoption. And another American jurist, deservedly of the 
highest authority, whose work is the hand-book of lawyers, 
the standard of law-schools, and the great dialectic of the 
legal profession. Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, too 
truly declared that the Supreme Court of the United States had 
surrendered the vast and undefinable developments of American 
commercial prosperity to the iron fetters and insular manacles 
of British prize law. " In the investigation of the rules of 
the modern laws of nations," says Kent, "particularly with 
regard to the extensive field of maritime capture, reference is 



100 PRIZE LAW. 

generally and freely made to the decisions of the English 
courts ; deservedly followed by all the courts of the United 
States, on all the leading points of national law. They con- 
tain more intrinsic argument, more full and precise details, 
more accurate illustrations, and are of more authority than the 
loose dicta of elementary writers. There is scarcely a decision 
in the English prize-courts at Westminster, on any general 
question of public right, that has not received the express ap- 
probation and sanction of our national courts. The decisions 
of the English high court of admiralty — especially since 1798 ! — 
have been consulted and uniformly respected by our Supreme 
Court. They are pre-eminently distinguished for sagacity, 
wisdom and learning, as well as for the chaste and classical 
beauties of their composition." 

Not content with British prize-law, some judges of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States seemed inclined to establish 
English common law, as parcel of it ; and that very part of com- 
mon law against which the United States were at war against 
Great Britain with a vengeance — the dogma of allegiance. 
Chief Justice Ellsworth had ruled, by double error, not only that 
English common law is American federal law, but that English 
common law of allegiance is American common law of alle- 
giance. In 1814, a majority of the Supreme Court engrafted 
a branch of that dogma on the prize law adopted from Eng- 
land. The venerable chief justice dissented, but protested in 
vain. "I will not pretend to say," was the conclusion of his 
argument, " what distinctions may or may not exist between 
these two classes of citizens, in a contest of a different descrip- 
tion. But in a contest between the United States and the na- 
turalized citizen, in a claim set up by the United States to 
confiscate his property, he may, I think, protect himself by any 
defence which would protect a native American. In the pro- 
secution of such a claim, the United States are, I think, if I 
may be excused for borrowing from the common law a phrase 
peculiarly appropriate, estopped from saying that they have 
not placed this adopted son on a level with those born in their 
family." Judge Livingston concurred in opinion with the 
Chief Justice. But all in vain. Scott's vulpine rapacity for 



PRIZE LAW. 101 

prey, and inflexible support of inalienable allegiance, extolled 
by Kent, deplored by Marshall, triumphed over the Declaration 
of Independence. The property of Scotch naturalized citizens, 
long domiciled in this country, Tvas confiscated upon British 
prize rules of residence, which reft the Supreme Court asunder 
with disparaging discord. Judge Johnson declined giving an 
opinion, and "I do not sit in this case," said Judge Story; "but 
on so important a question, where a difference of opinion has 
been expressed on the bench, I do not feel myself at liberty to 
withdraw from the responsibility which the law imposes on me." 
In a few words, therefore, he gave his adhesion to the bare ma- 
jority of judges voting for condemnation. If such a doubtful 
determination, by three judges overruling two, with two others 
not acting, constitutes " the express approbation and sanction 
of our national courts," which Kent's Commentaries applaud, 
the three or four hundred thousand European emigrants annually 
domesticated in the United States, may find laws of naturaliza- 
tion, enacted by Congress, annulled by bare majorities of a 
distracted court, rendering their expatriation less effectual 
than Europeans flatter themselves. Property of the founder 
of Pennsylvania, who never spent but two years at one time, 
and but four years altogether in that province, must have been 
confiscated, as English, by the Anglo- American rules of resi- 
dence. 

The last case I shall mention involved a question. Judge 
Story said, " than which none more important' or interesting 
ever came before a prize tribunal ; and the national rights sus- 
pended on it were of infinite moment to the maritime world." 
Division of opinion had then become a chronic court distemper. 
Precisely what that discord was in this case the published 
opinions did not disclose. But Judge Todd being absent, 
Judge Johnson prefaced his opinion, by saying that " circum- 
stances known to the court had, in great measure, imposed 
upon him the responsibility of the decision." A South Ame- 
rican Spanish subject, inhabitant of Buenos Ayres, shipped his 
property on board an armed British vessel that he freighted, 
which was captured by an American privateer, after a sea-fight. 
The Spanish Treaty of 1795, with the United States, provides 



102 THE NEREID. 

that free ships make free goods. For the captors of the un- 
lucky Spaniard, it was thereupon contended that the converse 
of that rule is implied by the law of nations, and therefore 
that the enemy's ship made enemy's goods of those of the neu- 
tral laden on board of her. 

A sort of dramatic interest attended that litigation. Wash- 
ington, . without places of theatrical or other general resort, 
except the Congress and the court, afforded no specta(?le so 
attractive as the temporary court-room, where, deprived by 
the enemy of their colonnaded apartment in the crypt of the 
capitol, the robed Supreme Court held its sessions. No mem- 
ber of either house was so remarkable a public speaker as 
Pinkney, with his sparkling rhetoric and solid logic, his exqui- 
site English dress, unusual cadences, and foreign, said to be 
English, forensic gesticulation. The court was crowded to hear 
him speak. Flattered by audiences of ladies and members of 
Congress, it was said that he multiplied his tropes and orna- 
mented, for such hearers, postulates of law by metaphorical il- 
lustrations. So ornate, yet chaste, figurative and uncommon was 
his language for a barrister addressing a bench of judges, con- 
cerning mere property, that his arguments, unless excellent, must 
have suffered from their fanciful enclosure. And there were 
several other eminent advocates whose eloquence drew audi- 
ences to the court. Dexter, Wirt, Harper, Webster, just be- 
ginning his career, and Emmett, surpassed by none in learning, 
ardour, and professional accomplishments. The secretary of the 
treasury, Dallas, too, took part in the case referred to, that of 
the Nereid, with Pinkney for his colleague ; then no longer at- 
torney-general, for he found that office a hindrance to his large 
and lucrative practice, especially in prize cases, which abound- 
ed, and captors could afford to share generously with lawyers 
their prizes in the lottery of war and of law. Aggressive, as 
usual, Pinkney taunted Emmett as a stranger come to teach us : 
to which the Irishman, with thick Milesian accent, and abrupt 
manner (poetical as even broken English sounds from an edu- 
cated tongue), in fine keeping with the commanding march of 
a masterly argument, impassioned with delightful pathos, tri- 
umphantly replied. With the the conviction of the court. 



THE NEREID. 103 

Emmctt seized the sympathy of the many distinguished by- 
standers, taking side with an insulted novus hospes, as Pink- 
ney called him, against the common champion of the court, 
■who lost the palm of oratory with his cause. In vain, with 
great force of rhetoric, he pleaded for belligerent supremacy. 
"The Nereid was armed, sailed, resisted, and was captured," he 
said. " If she could do all this, she was a cJun-tered libertine ; 
a neutral, surrounded with all the pride, pomp, and circum- 
stance of glorious war ; discordia rerum ; a centaur, half man, 
•half ship ; a fantastic form, bearing in one hand the spear of 
Achilles, in the other the olive-branch of Minerva ; the frown 
of defiance on her brow, and the smile of conciliation on her 
lip ; entwining the olive-branch of peace around the thunder- 
bolt of Jupiter, and hurling it, thus disguised, indiscriminately 
on friends and foes." 

No audience could fail to be struck by Mr. Pinkney's fervent 
display of belligerent power, right of search, droits of admiralty, 
and catalogue of contraband. Judge Story and some other 
judges were convinced. But the chief justice remained immov- 
able on the platform of neutrality and commerce. " With a 
pencil," said he, with almost sarcasm, rejecting Pinkney's bril- 
liant appeal, " dipped in the most vivid colours, and guided by 
the hand of a master, a splendid portrait has been drawn, exhibit- 
ing this vessel and her freighters as forming a single figure, com- 
posed of the most discordant materials — of peace and war. So 
exquisite was the skill of the artist, so dazzling the garb in which 
the figure was presented, that it required the exercise of that 
cold investigating faculty, Avhich ought always to belong to 
those who sit on this bench, to discern its only imperfection — 
its tvant of resemblance. The Nereid was no centaur, or neu- 
tral rover on the ocean, hurling thunderbolts of war, while 
sheltered by the olive-branch of peace ; but an open and de- 
clared belligerent, conveying neutral property." The right to 
do so, subject to the hazards of war, the pivot of the case, was 
conceded by all the divided court. Still Story, in a volu- 
minous opinion, contended for condemnation. But the chief 
justice, with a majority, denied the alleged convertibility of the 
benign principle, that free ships make free goods, into an 



104 PRIZE LAW. 

abominable contravention. " The reciprocity," said Johnson, 
"is a reciprocity of benevolence, not of violence, and dismal," 
he added, "would be the state of the world, and melancholy the 
office of a judge, if all the evils which the perfidy and injustice 
of power inflict on individual man were to be reflected from the 
tribunals which profess peace and good will to all mankind. 
To the judiciary it belongs to administer law and justice as it 
is, not as it is made by the folly or caprice of other nations." 

The history of that war cannot discover, from the literature 
of its law, whether the Supreme Court, with much difficulty, 
by bare majority rejecting the belligerent converse, likewise 
affirmed the peaceful principle that free ships make free goods. 
On the occasion of the armed neutrality of 1780, the Congress 
of the United States (October 5, 1780), informed that the 
Empress of Russia, attentive to the freedom of commerce, and 
the rights of nations, in her declaration to the belligerent and 
neutral powers, having proposed regulations founded upon prin- 
ciples of justice, equity, and moderation, (of which France, 
Spain, and most of the neutral maritime powers, have declared 
their approbation,) willing to testify their regard to the rights 
of commerce, resolved that the board of admiralty prepare 
and report instructions for the commanders of armed vessels, 
commissioned for the United States conformable to the princi- 
ples contained in the Russian declaration on the rights of 
neutral vessels, that the foreign ministers of the United States 
be empowered to accede to such regulations, at the Congress 
expected to be called by Russia, and that copies of these reso- 
lutions should be transmitted to all American foreign min- 
isters. 

On the 12th June, 1783, a committee of Congress, consisting 
of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Oliver Ellsworth, 
reported, and their resolution was adopted by Congress, that 
as the primary object of the resolution of the 5th of October, 
1780, relative to the accession of the United States to the 
neutral confederacy, no longer could operate, as the United 
States ought not to be entangled in European politics and con- 
troversies, but as the liberal principles on which it was established 
are favorable to the interest of nations, particularly the United 



PRIZE LAW. 105 

Stats, and ought to be kept in view to be promoted as far as 
consists with their fundamental policy, should the negotiations 
for peace comprise any stipulations recognising rights of neutral 
nations, engagements ought to be avoided obliging the con- 
tracting parties to support them by arms. The Congress of 
the United States, adopting these resolutions, was the Govern- 
ment, Legislature, and Executive, if not Judiciary. The com- 
mittee reporting the last Avere, the president, during the war 
of 1812, the second chief justice, and a personage whose mind 

\ is impressed, in war and peace, upon all American annals and 
institutions. The latter resolution is no exception, in principle, 
to the first. Previous to acknowledgment of independence, 
while contending for it in arms, the constituted authorities of the 
United States agreed to insist by arms and in alliance, ofiensive 
and defensive, with the powers of the Northern Confederacy, 
that free ships make free goods. About to make peace with 
the only power denying it, the United States would not risk 
acknowledgment of their independence by protracting war for 
an abstract principle. But it was part of their fundamental 
policy, to be kept constantly in view and j^romoted. Peace is 
that policy. Rather than entanglement in European strife, 
especially while weak from infancy, and exhausted by hostili- 
ties, the United States postponed belligerent contest for free 
ships to make free goods. Not to be involved in the inter- 
minable conflicts of the old world, they proclaimed neutrality 
as their permanent policy. But all for peace. When ac- 
cused by France, in 1793, of acquiescing in British viola- 
tions of the freedom of the seas, and Washington's secretary 
of state, Jefferson, answered the French reproach, that 

' though the treaty arrangement by which free bottoms make 

- free goods is less oppressive to commerce, yet it is an ex- 
ception to the general law of nations — the concession, though 
wrong, did not abandon the right. To the same impeachment, 
preferred more angrily by France, in 1799, Adams's secretary, 
Pickering, by the agency of the special envoys Pinckney, Mar- 
shall, and Gerry, still protesting that such acquiescence was 
only abiding by the law of nations, declared it the obvious in- 

' terest, and anxious desire, of the United States to change it as 



106 PRIZE LAW. 

soon as practicable. The French revolution raging, and the 
United States hardly ahle to support, necessarily desirous to 
escape, the wars it caused, these were politic diplomatic pleas. 
But, become the first people of a new world of nations, Avith 
the same peaceful policy still impressed, as ever, on their Le- 
gislature and Executive, the war of 1812, with Great Britain, 
called upon the judiciary to adjudge that among the laws of 
nations is that by which the ocean is peaceably fortified by a 
plain principle more restrictive of war than any armament ; that 
the national flag is the same redoubtable signal at the mast of 
the unarmed merchant-ship, as at that of the man-of-war. To 
the same judges who assumed power to annul statutes as un- 
constitutional, to sanction foreign judgments, though on their 
face palpably erroneous or absurd, and to deny the existence 
of English common law among the laws of the United States, 
it belonged to pronounce that American cruisers have no right 
to look beyond the flag of neutral vessels at sea. Congress 
have always so resolved, and the executive so governed. 
Although twice, formerly, when the French government re- 
proached the American with abandonment of the rule that free 
ships make free goods, its validity was denied, yet it had 
been the treaty law of nations, throughout Europe, since 
1646, recognised by England, France, Spain, Holland, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Portugal, the Empire, Prussia, Sicily, Genoa, 
and by treaty between Russia and Great Britain, so lately as 
1801, to establish then by magnanimous renunciation of odious 
war usurpations. 

If ever disputed, it has been so long and so universally ac- 
knowledged as to be no longer debateable, that a ship on the 
high seas is, in contemplation of law, as much part of the ter- 
ritory, whose national flag she bears, as any fortress in the 
interior of that territory. The most libertine encroachments 
of maritime war do not question the sanctity of the vessels of 
states at peace pursuing their accustomed navigation. By the 
law of nations, war authorizes one to inflict upon another what- 
ever injuries it can : to seize, confiscate, or destroy its property 
— kill, capture, and perhaps enslave its people. Nor has any 
neutral nation a right to prevent such belligerent operations. 



PKIZE LAW. 107 

It is bound to furuisli no assistance to eitlier of the belligerents, 
but remain strietly and really neutral. But the declaration or 
Avaging of war imposes no obligation or restraint upon any but 
those who are parties to it. It is legislative or executive 
action confined to those who declare or wage it, having no 
operation upon other nations. It is therefore lawful for neu- 
trals to trade, after the war as before, in all kinds of merchan- 
dise, and with the belligerents. Munitions of war are no 
exception to this lawful permission. Belligerents may, by 
force, conquer any part of an enemy's country, and either 
limit or prohibit neutral trade to it ; wherefore, they may for- 
cibly prevent all neutral communication with all places block- 
aded, invested, or besieged by land or naval forces. With this 
exception there is no belligerent right to molest neutral property 
or commerce anywhere, and least of all upon the high seas, 
which are open to the unrestricted navigation of all nations. 
The belligerent right of search extends no further than autho- 
rity to ascertain whether a vessel be really neutral, as her flag 
indicates ; for which purpose a cruiser may examine the ship's 
sea letters and passports, or other proofs of ownership of the 
vessel. But there is no war right to examine bills of lading, 
invoices, or other documents indicating the ownership of the 
cargo. The declaration of war cannot compel the inhabitants 
of a nation not parties to the war, to abridge or alter, in any 
respect, their accustomed commerce. They have a right to 
trade with all the nations of the Avorld, including the bellige- 
rents, as before. However this right may have been impaired 
by force, or capitulated through fear, it still remains the same. 
Declaration of war, manifesto, or even direct notice by belli- 
gerents interdicting neutral trade, is inoperative upon neutrals, 
because such restraint can be imposed only by their own 
government, and they owe no obedience to the commands of 
any other. The only lawful mode for belhgerents to obtain 
the consent of neutrals to such restrictions is by negotiation 
with the neutral state. ^Conditions frequently prescribed by 
belligerents at the beginning, or during the course, of hostilities, 
according to wdiich neutrals are directed to conduct their com- 
merce, arc not only laws but penal laws, Avhich belligerents 



108 PRIZE LAW. 

have no right to enforce by confiscation or other inflictions 
upon persons subject to no laws but those of their own state. 
Belligerent prescription of such regulations, though too often 
submitted to, is mere arrogation of sovereignty over persons 
and places where the belligerents have none. The seas are 
open and free to all for both peace and war. War gives no 
national rights, except between parties to it, to supersede the 
rights of peace ; and it is one of those rights by the law of 
nature applied to nations, by the great preponderance of con- 
ventional law, and according to the fitness of things, to trade 
during hostilities, in all things, not excepting munitions of war, 
to all places, except those possessed or besieged by one of the 
parties to it. American prize courts are constituted on prin- 
ciples totally different from those of Europe. American admi- 
ralty judges are liable, doubtless, to national, local, and per- 
sonal prepossessions. But there is nothing in the organization 
of their courts to warp their incumbents, who are perfectly 
independent of executive influence. 

Preceding from review of the doctrines to a brief considera- 
tion of the practice of these courts, we must not be surprised 
to find it, like that of British prize courts, entirely difierent 
from that of English common law, or even chancery courts. 
Two hundred years of inveterate practice fix, probably be- 
yond reform, the anomaly, in judicial proceedings, of bellige- 
rents sending neutrals, as prizes, to be tried in the courts of 
the captors. Mixed commissions, created by modern treaties, 
show that partiality is to be apprehended on all such occasions. 
Jui'ies, half foreigners, changes of venue, ambulatory courts, 
and the Constitution of the United States vouchsafing federal 
tribunals to protect aliens and citizens of other states from 
judicial and local prejudice, concede the desideratum of impar- 
tial justice. It violates the principles of rectitude, to commit 
arrested neutrals to the rapacity of cruisers, proctors and hostile 
judges, inflamed by national aud sordid passions, armed with 
irregular power, and tempted by uTC^istible motives to wrong. 
Yet, in the report of the English admiralty and common law 
officers to the king in 1750, confirmed in the letter of Scott and 
Nicholl, admiralty judge and advocate, to John Jay, the Ame- 



PRIZE LAW. 109 

rlcan minister, in 1794, it is said that tlie proper and regular 
court for these condemnations, is the court of that state to 
Avhich the captor belongs. Regarding the whole hierarchy, 
from vice-admiralty court in colonies to admiralty-judge adju- 
dications in the metropolis, by special commission from the 
crown, and in last resort, the council of state, the object must 
be less to do justice than confiscate property. Jurisdiction is 
not ordinarily assumed over persons and things of another 
sovereignty, for which, as prize law, the English admiralty 
judge and advocate give no sufficient reason, and cite no autho- 
rity. Treaties, as they vouch them, have established what 
may be termed an anomaly, which does not consist with juris- 
prudence generally. 

It must be confessed, too, that established forms of proceeding 
in prize courts are of long, perhaps universal, certainly uniform 
practice, not originating in England, however militant with the 
genius of her common law. English and American pleadings 
are open, and may be oral ; the rules of evidence, though arti- 
ficial and complex, are, in outline, plain and kind. A cardinal 
safeguard is, that no one is bound to criminate himself; and 
all cruel and unnecessary coercion is discountenanced. In 
prize courts all this is reversed. The rules of the inquisition, 
as of old established in Italy, Spain and France, aggravated by 
English ingenuity and cupidity, were forthwith adopted by the 
American district, circuit and supreme courts. To seize pro- 
perty and arrest persons on suspicion, not within the territory, 
nor subject to the jm-isdiction of the captor ; to dispossess and 
confine them ; compel the dispossessed proprietor, or his agents, 
to undergo the question by searching interrogation ; to pre- 
sume their liability to condemnation, and cast on them the 
burthen of proof; deprived of their papers, vouchers and 
titles ; to extort confession and infer guilt from the absence of 
complete proofs ; either to refuse supplemental testimony, or 
fetter it with costly conditions ; to insist that a captured neu- 
tral shall be at once prepared with perfect demonstration of 
ownership ; to require little or no proof from the captor ; nor, 
if commanding a public vessel, any security for the expenses 
of unfounded prosecution ; every legal presumption strained 



110 PRIZE LAW. 

against those entitled to every legal presumption in their favor ; 
strangers in an unknown country; ignorant of the language, 
the laws and the lawyers — all this perversion of right, however 
established, is, like admiralty droits, temptation and cover to 
injustice. If possible for American courts to improve or reform 
it altogether, it would have harmonized with the theory of 
American institutions. 

The President's instructions to cruisers were to proceed in 
exercising the rights of war, towards enemy vessels and crews, 
with all the justice and humanity characteristic of the Ame- 
rican nation ; orders to be observed at least as fully in regard 
to neutrals, and enforced as sedulously by courts of justice. 

The second volume of this Historical Sketch, explains how 
trade with the enemy, under his licenses, was extirpated, both 
by judicial sentence and by act of Congress. The subject will 
not, therefore, be resumed here further than merely briefly to 
notice some early decisions in the district courts, by which our 
cruisers were perplexed at first. 

The district judge of Pennsylvania, in September, 1812. 
condemned an American vessel and cargo, covered by Foster, 
the British minister's permission, and necessary to be landed 
in England, with important despatches for Castlereagh, the 
British Secretary, on a voyage to Portugal : not, however, as 
trading with the enemy, or bearing his license, but for serving 
him by carrying despatches and their bearer. The district 
judge of Rhode Island condemned an American vessel and 
cargo for sailing under Admiral Sawyer's license, for St. Barts, 
with ex-consul Allen's certificate that the voyage was intended 
to supply the British West Indies. But the district judge of 
Massachusetts released an American vessel and cargo, going 
from Baltimore to Lisbon, under the same admiral and ex- 
consul's passport, in a difiident decree, which closed by the 
judge's confession that he would not be surprised if his con- 
clusion should be found erroneous. Soon after, the district 
judge of Pennsylvania not only restored an American vessel 
and cargo, captui-ed under similar circumstances, but, further- 
more, pronounced the trade lawful, the license no cause of 
capture, remittance to the enemy's country no ofience, and 



ALIEN LAW. in 

capture for such causes puni-shable in damages. On appeals 
to the circuit courts, these errors were at once and entirely 
reformed. Judges Washington and Story adjudged that all 
trade and intercourse with enemies are unlawful ; punishable 
at common law, and their vehicles confiscable ; — which judg- 
ments of the circuits were fully sustained by the Supreme 
Court. All the judges concurring in the decisions on this sub- 
ject were of opinion that the mere sailing under an enemy's 
license, without regard to the object of the voyage, or the port 
of destination, constitutes of itself an act of illegality, which 
subjects the property to confiscation. It is an attempt by an 
individual of a belligerent country to clothe himself with a 
neutral character, by the license of the other belligerent, and 
thus to separate himself from the common character of his own 
country. 

One of the earliest American captures condemned by these 
decisions was made by the ill-fated frigate Chesapeake, whose 
disgraceful subjugation by a British squadron, in 1808, seemed 
to mark that ship as doomed to calamity. Another was made 
by the brig Argus, which, after a brilliant cruise in the British 
channel, was also taken by the British brig Pelican. A third 
was prize to the frigate Constitution. This adventure belonged 
to persons who became members of the Hartford Convention. 
After thirty years had elapsed, they petitioned Congress for 
remimeration for what the courts of justice had condemned, as 
the laws of all nations require : but the petitioners di-ew no 
prize in the lottery of legislation. 

lu this country an act of Congress (and in England, I be- 
lieve, an act of Parliament) is necessary to vest the executive 
with powers which, in many others, are exercised through the 
instrumentality of what is called police, to arrest, confine or 
banish obnoxious persons. Accordingly, during hostilities vrith 
France, in 1798, a much controverted act, respecting alien 
enemies, empowered the President, in any declared, and by 
him proclaimed, Avar, invasion, or predatory incui'sion perpe- 
trated, attempted or threatened, to apprehend, restrain, secure 
and remove the male natives, fourteen years old and upwards, 
within tlie United States, and not naturalized, of a hostUe 



112 ALIEN LAW. 

government or nation ; and to establish any other regulations 
in the premises necessary for public safety. But resident aliens, 
not chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against 
public safety, are allowed to depart, with their effects, as trea- 
ties provide ; if no treaty, in such time as the President may 
declare, according to the dictates of humanity and hospitality. 
All judges of the United States, and the states, and justices 
of the peace, having criminal jurisdiction, upon complaint 
against an alien enemy, resident at large, contrary to the Pre- 
sident's proclamation, or regulations, to the danger of the 
public safety and peace, are authorized to cause such aliens to i 
be arrested, and, on proper examination, banished, or restrained 
by sureties or imprisonment, till compliance with the magis- 
trate's order. The marshals of the United States are charged 
with executing these proceedings. 

In November, 1813, Charles Lockington, an ^Englishman, 
committed to prison in the debtors' apartment, of Philadelphia, 
by John Smith, marshal of the eastern district of Pennsylvania, 
as an alien enemy at large contrary to the regulations, obtained 
a habeas corpus from William Tilghman, chief justice of Penn- 
sylvania, claiming to be discharged. His counsel contended 
that alien enemies are not prisoners of war, but by the law of 
nations are protected in their persons, liberty and effects. The 
President's power over prisoners of war is derived from his 
constitutional capacity as commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy ; but the act of Congress, respecting alien enemies, gives 
all the executive power in relation to them, which is confined 
to apprehending and confining them for removal only, not to 
be kept as prisoners, for which purpose alone can the marshals 
be employed ; and then it can only be effected through judicial 
agency, not summarily. Which objections were answered by 
the district attorney, Dallas, who furthermore suggested that 
state judges have no jurisdiction in such a case. Chief Justice 
Tilghman maintained his jurisdiction, and distinguished Lock- 
ington's case from that of prisoners of war. They are subject 
to its laws ; brought into a country by force ; have no muni- 
cipal rights ; nothing in common with its citizens ; no promise 
of protection. Whereas those, who, although placed in the 



ALIEN LAW. 113 

situation of enemies, by events over vrliicli tliey have no control, 
yet may not be enemies at heart, may prefer this to their native 
country, may have come here to share our fortunes as our insti- 
tutions invite, acquired property, and been permitted to swear 
that it is their intention to become citizens ; with the implied 
promise, which all civilized nations are supposed to make, that 
in case of sudden war they may depart in. reasonable time, if 
they will. There is strong colour for argument, the judge 
thought, that the president cannot direct the marshal to re- 
move aliens to an appointed place (in this instance the inland 
town of Reading, sixty miles from tide-water), without judicial 
intervention. Still, in his opinion, this executive power 'is 
summary, because the object of the law is to provide for the 
safety of the country, for which it might be necessary to act 
on sudden emergencies. Marshals may apply to judges, but 
are not obliged to do so. The powers vested by the act of 
Congress in the president are extensive, and those conferred on 
the judiciary salutary. Among the evils of war, one is that a 
people, who wish to preserve their freedom, must make the 
hands of the executive strong, or the safety of the nation will 
be endangered. 

Lockington, foiled in this attempt at relief, or revenge, by 
habeas corpus allowed by one judge, renewed it, with no better 
success, in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where the chief 
justice's opinion was confirmed. Lockington then appealed to 
the United States court for that district, by suing the marshal 
for trespass in confining him. Judgment was not given till 
1817. But it belongs to the subject to add here that Chief 
Justice Tilghman's opinion was again and strongly confirmed 
by Judge Washington, who held the president's summary power, 
exercised through the department of state, and executed by the 
marshal, without judicial intervention, to be the clear meaning 
of the act of Congress. 

The act of Congress respecting alien enemies was, by sup- 
plement of July, 1812, declared not to extend to any treaty 
expired, or not in force the 19th of June, when the president's 
proclamation issued, which briefly enjoined on all persons in 
office to be vigilant and zealous in discharging their duties, and 

Vol. III.— 8 



114 ALIEN LAW. 

the people to exert themselves in supporting and invigorating 
all measures of the constituted authorities for obtaining a 
speedy, just, and honorable peace. The special instructions 
for enforcement of the restraint of alien enemies were issued 
by John Mason, commissary-general of prisoners, and from the 
department of state, addressed to the marshals, and published 
in the official newspapers. 

About the time of the before-mentioned decision in Pennsyl- 
vania, the Supreme Court of New York determined that alien 
enemies may sue in American courts during war with their coun- 
try, unless it duly appears that they are at the time adhering to 
the enemy. Even prisoners of war may sue, if resident in the 
country before and at the time of war, which implies permission 
from the government. Such is the usage and law of nations, 
which is part of the common law without municipal adoption. 
An alien who comes to reside in a foreign country, is entitled, so 
long as he conducts himself peaceably, to continue to reside there 
under the public protection, and it requires the express will of 
the sovereign power to order him away. The rigor of the okl 
rules of war no longer exists, when wars are carried on with 
the moderation that commerce inspires. It may now be re- 
garded as the public law of Europe that the subjects of an 
enemy, without confining the rule to merchants, so long as 
they are permitted to remain in the country, are to be protected 
in their persons and property. If ordered away in consequence 
of war, they may leave a power of attorney and collect their 
debts by suit. A right to confiscate the debts due to the enemy 
was the rigorous doctrine of the ancient law ; but temporary 
disability to sue was all Grotius seemed willing to allow to hos- 
tilities. Since his time, continual efforts have been made to 
strengthen justice, to restrain the intemperance of war, and to 
promote the intercourse and happiness of mankind. These 
doctrines, laid down by Chief Justice Kent, and fortified by 
numerous quotations and authorities, in verse as well as prose, 
appeared with the decision of the Supreme Court of New York. 
Judge Kent's learning and professional zeal, the purity of his 
long life, and simplicity of his manners, together with respectable 
contributions to the literature as well as the science of law, 



MILITIA. 115 

rank liim among the most authoritative of American jurists. 
But as one of the executive council of the State of New York, 
mixing politics with law, mitigations of common law for hosti- 
lities and aggravations of prize law were joined in preposterous 
confusion. About the same time, the Supreme Court of New 
York refused summarily to set aside execution where the plain- 
tiff, with judgment obtained before war, resided thereafter in 
Canada, as an alien enemy. Soon after that decision, the same 
court determined that war only suspends right of suit till 
peace. 

Every national sovereignty has a paramount right to the 
military services of its people for defensive war; for which 
every man is bound to serve and sacrifice life, if need be, for 
his country ; which he forfeits by taking up arms against his 
government. The trinodial necessity of military service, build- 
ing fortresses and repairing bridges, preceded feudal tenures. 
But how best military duty can be exacted, has always been 
the diiEcult problem which it still continues to be for us of 
English descent. Hereditary monarchs, with elective generals, 
elected by the temporary armies they commanded, according to 
Csesar and Tacitus, were the military government of the Ger- 
man ancestors of the Saxon forefathers of the British people, 
from whom North Americans are mostly descended. The 
I Normans carried feuds and knights, with escuage and other 
i feudal liabilities into England. Statutes for arming the people, 
j and county lieutenancies of the king to muster and train them, 
j followed ; superseded by royal guards and standing armies, 
I sometimes without act of parliament. It is questionable whether 
I standing armies or occasional levies cost most money, taking a 
I cycle, or destroy most foes. The extolled science of modern 
i warfare, gunpowder, great guns and all, does not kill or cap- 
i tm-e more than the armies of antiquity ; and in most of the 
i wars of the last hundred years, the inexperienced vanquished 
at first, have come off victors at last over the first disciplined. 
For the purposes of police, and to suppress insurrections, a 
distinct class of soldiery is contrary to the theory, and dan- 
gerous to the existence of free government. The proceedings 
of parliament, to deprive the king of the command of even 



116 MILITIA. 

militia, were among the first steps of tlie English Revolution : 
and Warburton, in a note to Clarendon, vaunts that no revo- 
lution can be brought about in spite of a brave, veteran and 
well-disciplined army, indisposed to change. So loyal a mo- 
narchist as Blackstone denounces the peril to liberty from any 
distinct profession of arms; insisting that, enlisted for short 
periods, soldiers should be intermixed with the people, without 
separate camp, barricades or inland fortress, and a stated num- 
ber discharged at intervals, so as to keep up constant con- 
nexion between them and the people. When he wrote, about 
the beginning of our Revolution, the standing army of Great 
Britain was maintained only to protect royal possessions on 
the continent of Europe, and the balance of continental power ; 
liable to disbandment once a year, by the annual mutiny act 
for adding another year to its existence. As long as Rome 
was a great and growing republic, the soldiers were the people, 
says Montesquieu, until Marius laid the foundations of usurped 
empire by enlisting the rabble of Italy into the army. It is 
supposed that no state can maintain more than one-hundredth 
part of its population in arms and idleness. Yet experience 
teaches that, without military segregation and subordination, 
one body and one will, belligerent science and operations can- 
not be perfected. Such an institution, unknown to the British 
constitution, according to Blackstone, Hamilton, in the Fe- 
deralist, avers is not an unconstitutional standing army in these 
United States, unless kept up by the executive alone, without 
sanction of the legislature. 

No trace of Alfred's supposed plan of a militia for England 
is extant ; nor was it till as late as 1757, that the militia of 
that kingdom was established as since known, viz., merely 
local and defensive troops, seldom liable to be marched out of 
their own counties, never out of the kingdom. Hallam, in his 
Constitutional History, inveighing against standing armies, con- 
fesses, or complains, that British militia have become unpopular 
and burthensome in England, without diminishing the standing 
army, and serving little more than to furnish recruits for the re- 
gular army, and in France the magnificent national guard cre- 
ated by La Fayette has been disbanded by President Bonaparte. 



MILITIA. 117 

So militia have proved a difficult subject in tliese United States ; 
indispensable and intractable, formidable as suffragans, not 
always as soldiers, often worthless, sometimes invaluable, but 
at all events the most expensive troops. The disaffected go- 
vernment of ]\Iassachusetts, as soon as war began, at once sug- 
gested a constitutional misconstruction to thwart belligerent 
operations and embarrass the federal government on the de- 
bateable ground between State and United States authority 
over the militia. On the 1st of August, 1812, Governor Strong 
called on the Supreme Court of Massachusetts for their official 
advice whether, first, the President or the Governor was to 
judge if the exigency had arisen requiring the Governor to 
place the militia in the service of the United States, at the 
requisition of the President ; and, secondly, whether when 
the exigency is determined, and the militia employed accord- 
ingly, they can be lawfully commanded by any but militia 
officers, except the President. Three of the judges of the 
Supreme Court, Parsons, the chief justice, called, not without 
reason, from his great learning and talents, a Giant of the 
Law, with two associates, Sewall and Parker, who afterwards 
each in turn succeeded Parsons as chief justice of Massachu- 
setts, did not hesitate to pledge their characters and responsi- 
bility to the gross absurdity of answering both propositions 
acceptably to the disaffected State and annoyingly to the 
federal government. 

Connecticut coincided in these palpable heresies, which were 
not only rejected, but denounced every where south and west 
of New England. When submitted by a case of elaborated 
pleadings to the Supreme Court of New York, in 1814, the 
opinion of that court, delivered by one of its ablest and boldest 
judges, Spencer, declared that the President, and he alone, is 
made the judge as well of the happening of the events on which 
the militia may be called forth, as of the number, time, and 
destination of that force. It would be monstrous, he added, 
to countenance the construction contended for, that whether 
the President acted correctly in making his requisitions might 
be drawn in question by every subordinate officer. Ambrose 
Spencer, then an associate, afterward chief justice of the Su- 
preme Coui't of New York in its best days, was distinguished 



118 MILITIA. 

by the superior strength of his judicial decisions. With sons i 
in the army and navy, bravely seiTing their country, he felt 
the odium as well as unsoundness of the Massachusetts militia 
positions, which are exposed by William Rawle in his treatise i 
on the federal constitution. Another New York militia con- ' 
troversy during the wars, procrastinated till 1827, before final 
decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, at last, 
by the unanimous judgment of that court, pronounced by Judge 
Story, a Massachusetts lawyer, put to rest for ever the factious 
militia objections originating with disafiection in that state. Its 
constituted authorities suffered part of the state to be taken 
by the enemy without resistance; and if more extensive inva- 
sion had occurred there. Governor Strong, Avith his judicial 
advisers, must have found their anti-federal recalcitration still 
more paralysing. 

Another militia difficulty, propagated from the same quarter, 
was, whether they are liable for more than local, sedentary 
and defensive or domestic service ; not to be marched from their 
own vicinities — at all events, not out of the United States. 
English militia would hardly submit to be transported beyond 
their own insular bulwarks, to wage continental wars for Hano- 
verian possessions, or the balance of power. But neither the 
Constitution of the United States, acts of Congress, or the 
nature of things, suppose the power to repel invasion, or to 
repress insurrection, to be without right to go from one State 
into another, or transgress the riverain or ideal boundaries of 
the United States. When Washington marched to suppress 
an insurrection in Pennsylvania, he commanded militia from 
several other States, with their several Governors at their 
heads. Militia composed the greater part of the armies 
of Hull and Harrison, when they invaded Canada, and of 
Jackson, when he penetrated into the Mississippi Territory. 
The acts of Congress expressly authorize the President to call 
out the militia of one State to suppress insurrection in another. 
AVhenever in actual service, the militia are under the disci- 
pline of the army of the United States, their pay and punish- 
ment are the same ; the President is their commander-in-chief; 
and if he may judge when it is necessary to call them out, he 
can likewise best judge whether offensive and invading warfare 



MILITIA. 119 

may not, according to circumstances, be the best method of 
defending the country. 

In a case which originated during the war, though not finally 
determined till 1820, it was resolved, by the Supreme Court 
of the United States, that the power of militia courts-martial 
to punish men disobeying the President's call to service is not 
exclusively federal, but that States may, by law, authorise such 
courts, when Congress has not done so: and also, that' the 
President may call on any officers of the State militia for a 
draft of them. Federal control and martial law do not attach 
to militia till in actual service, when they become exclusively 
national troops, of whom the President is commander-in-chief, 
as if part of th^' army of the United States for the period of 
service. The opinion of the court, delivered by Judge Wash- 
ington, together with gratuitous arguments by Judges Johnson 
and Story, are not without the judicial diversity inseparable 
from political jurisprudence ; while that of the court, never- 
theless, harmonises federal with State authority, as is always 
desirable, affirming the judgment of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania, always, since Penn first suggested union, studious 
of that national compact. That court likewise adjudged that all 
men are bound to serve in the militia, if inhabitants, and not by 
law excepted. Some other adjudications of militia law by the 
courts of the United States, occasioned by the war of 1812, 
not involving constitutional or fundamental political questions, 
do not fall within the scope of this Historical Sketch. 

On the 7th of March, 1814, the committee on the judiciary 
reported to the House of Representatives a bill prescribing the 
mode of commencing, prosecuting, and deciding controversies 
between two or more States. Soon afterwards, on the 12th of 
that month, the National Intelligencer published at large another 
important bill, reported from that committee, to amend the ju- 
dicial system of the United States. As neither of these bills was 
taken into consideration, it is superfluous to notice them further. 

During more than thirty years of profound peace, secured 
by less than three of that war, the United States had no oppor- 
tunity of shewing that, as a belligerent nation, they concede 



120 MEXICAN WAR. 

to neutrals tlie rights which, as a neutral nation, they required 
from belligerents. At length another war was provoked and 
begun by Mexico, as history will eventually record, rectifying 
much European, especially English, and some American mis- 
representation on that subject. The United States have never 
been aggressors. Both their foreign wars have been defensive, 
not undertaken till after long forbearance ; the Mexican not 
less than the English. And the great cause of freedom and 
humanity, vindicated against England, was further advanced by 
hostilities with Mexico. Liberty of the seas, mitigated warfare, 
principles of peace, and rights of property, vindicated against 
Great Britain, are the most memorable, beneficial and lasting 
conquests of the Mexican war, not yet outshining, but eventually 
to eclipse, its splendid victories and golden aggrandizements. 

Off the formidable fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa, the Ame- 
rican squadron, blockading La Vera Cruz, was overlooked by 
floating, perhaps frowning, broadsides of the navies of Great 
Britain, France, Spain, Holland — most of the maritime powers 
of Europe ; whose consular flags, streaming from the city, also 
denoted commercial protection to neutral nations. If those of 
the northern European naval powers were not there, their 
sympathies were with us. An American army, close packed 
on board their squadron, Avas commanded, both army and navy, 
by lineal martial flescendants of the war for sea liberties, 
wrested from England : both of them of the few who then, by 
sea and land, nobly proved that triumph comes of daring, as 
prudence is providence, an,d achievement the child of discretion 
and audacity united. In the little squadron which hurried to 
sea the moment war was declared, in 1812, fearful, only, that 
its going might be forbid as too perilous, sailed an obscure and 
modest youth, David Conner, soon captm-ed while conducting 
the first British prize into an American port ; who, in 1846, 
commanded the squadron operating against Mexico. On the 
deck of his frigate, " proudly eminent," stood the ostentatious 
young brigadier, Winfield Scott, whom two years of continual 
reverses, in 1812-13, only nerved«for further effort ; and when 
the army seemed incapable of success, heading other brave 
spirits, like the navy, almost in spite of superior orders, he led 



MEXICAN WAR. 121 

them, all caparisoned in their most conspicuous garb, into the 
mighty enemy's domain, resolved to break the talisman of 
British invincibility, or perish in the trial. Future history, 
real and legendary, will illustrate the combats of those Ame- 
rican Iloratii, by sea and land, who challenged superior num- 
bers to unequal combats, on which national independence and 
maritime liberty depended. The dragon's teeth they sowed 
bore their first fruits in Canada, and their second in Mexico. 

Never have war's annals celebrated a combined military and 
naval operation so successfully conducted as the landing of 
Scott's twelve thousand soldiers from Conner's squadron. No 
jealousy of corps, no strife of superiors or insubordination of 
inferiors, scarcely any casualty interfered with the admirable 
regularity and marvellous facility of that descent of the north 
upon the south, the white upon the broAvn men. Magnificent 
equatorial sunshine gilded northern arms, inexplicably favored 
by southern reticence, as from a bay of storms, then placid as 
a prairie, without molestation or delay, the army stepped from 
the navy upon the sea of sands ashore ; and seamen emulating 
soldiers, all eagerly at once cheered their commanders to assault 
a place which it was supposed would cost a thousand slain to 
carry by assault. Wilkinson charged Scott, in 1814, with the 
odium of "a butcher's hill" for his bloody exploits at Bridge water; 
who, become veteran, with scarce any loss of life except hostile, 
by a few days' scientific strategy, with naval co-operation, sub- 
dued both the strong city and the fortress deemed impregnable. 
Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, all the capitals of the old 
world, where force maintains order and peace is mortgaged to 
victory, listened respectfully to the republican trumpet, at 
whose blast fell the walls of Mexico. Nor will the considerate 
of this new, cheap, poorly-armed nation, be insensible to the 
effect of war as sometimes the only peace-maker. But if this 
republic remains faithful to its institutions, its richest gratifica- 
tions from hostilities will be the pacific principles proclaimed, 
signalised, and effectuated by those with England and with 
Mexico. By war with England the dominion of the seas was, 
at least, beat off ; in that with INIexico it was entirely laid 
down. For the first time the golden rule of peace and property 



122 MEXICAN WAR. 

recognising the sea as the dominion of no nation, but common 
to all alike, was inaugurated by the American navy proclaiming 
it from their mast-heads, in the presence of those of England, 
France, Holland, and Spain. That free ships make free goods 
was then reinstated, after long abeyance and much denial, by 
American vessels of war, with all war's rights and powers, de- 
claring to English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and all other mer- 
chant-vessels, that their flags protect their cargoes. I am not 
able to aver, by the record, that instructions from government 
directed our vessels of war to acknowledge that free ships make 
free goods. If not, and the commanding naval officers never- 
theless did so, as is positively affii-med by Lieutenant Semmes, 
in his instructive work on that war, so much the more do com- 
manding officers Conner and Perry, without superior orders, 
making that acknowledgment, show how deeply engraven the 
principle was in naval understanding by the war of 1812. 
Nor do I know whether the English modern perversions of 
the established regulations of contraband were expressly 
overruled by orders from our government. But no prize-com^t, 
or public sentiment in the United States would have tolerated 
attempts to enforce English usurpations in this respect, con- 
tradicted by all American commercial treaties. As to blockade, 
the letter of the secretary of the navy, Mr. Bancroft, of the 
13th of May, 1845, was in terms explicit that blockade must 
be strict and absolute, by adequate force, with due notice to 
neutrals, giving as much publicity as possible to the declaration, 
and allowing neutrals already in port twenty days to leave it ; 
and respecting English mail steamers, to follow the precedent 
set by the French in their recent blockade of Vera Cruz with 
regard to them. So strong was the American naval sentiment 
on that subject, that when an officer of the war of 1812, Com- 
modore Biddle, in 1847, found that a junior officer had pro- 
claimed a blockade more extensive than he had war-vessels to 
enforce, the senior at once rescinded the junior's proclamation. 
No search was attempted but such as could not possibly give 
offence. The British frigate Endymion, one of the squadron 
that captured Decatur in the President, in 1815, was the British 
flag-ship off La Vera Cruz in 184G-7. Instead of the inimical 



MEXICAN ^VAR. 123 

and uncomfortable feelings that once estranged English from 
American naval officers, the most com-teous and the kindest 
intercourse prevailed, as always should, among them. The 
British flag witnessed not the abdication, for it never assumed, 
but the entire voluntary renunciation, by the American flag, 
of those predatory practices by sea which war ashore disowns, 
and which are always pregnant with strife, ill-blood, hostility, 
and spoliation. The American navy seized, with proud alacrity, 
their first opportunity of practical demonstration that what, as 
neutrals, they require of belligerents, as belligerents they spon- 
taneously concede to neutrals. They did more in the Gulf of 
Mexico to vindicate, practically, maritime peace and property 
than all the many peace societies that have for ages in vain 
striven theoretically to endoctrinate mankind. In the Gulf of 
Mexico, an American close sea, they reversed Selden's Mare 
Clausum and Woodeson's more modern, but scarcely less ob- 
jectionable, doctrine that the sea is part of the British realms. 

The Mexican not being a maritime war, afibrded few occa- 
sions by sea-prizes for American judicial notice of maritime 
questions. Only one prize case came before the Sujireme Court 
of the United States. But in that one, with Scott's decisions 
quoted, his perversions of blockade and of commercial residence 
Avere not sanctioned, but the liberal principles of modern war 
law unanimously adjudicated. The humane spirit of Marshall 
prevailed in a judgment to which, if he had lived, Kent must liaA^e 
yielded his fondness for Scott's harsh law. If Great Britain, 
as there is reason to hope, contradicted by all the world in these 
sea-rights, conforms to their mitigation, as thus enforced in 
liict and by law, maritime hostilities must be much abridged, 
with all their burdensome charges, their violations of inoffensive 
property and profitable enterprise, their intolerable abuses and 
inflictions. The benign influence of commercial intercourse will 
be vastly increased. Commercial prosperity will be the crea- 
tion of industry and enterprise, not of war and spoliation. 
Peace will profit more than war. Acts of peace will be more 
glorious than feats of arms. 

Without any design of describing the Mexican invasion, there 



124 MEXICAN WAK. 

belongs to this view of its marine effects some further account 
of tlie improved warfare by which it was achieved ashore. 

After many years of menacing recriminations, the stagnating 
vis inertise of bodies politic still benumbed Congress, when 
startled by the presidential message that Mexico had drawn 
blood by beginning hostilities on our soil. On the spur of that 
excitement, after, with great unanimity, passing the act de- 
claring war. Congress soon relapsed into lethargy, parsimony, 
and faction, and with difficulty enacted indispensable pro- 
visions. Upon General Taylor's complaints to the secretary 
of war, that murders and other shameful atrocities were com- 
mitted among the troops, which the articles of war did not 
reach, and he had no authority to punish, the secretary in vain 
called on Congress for adequate legislation. Nothing was 
done. After Taylor, by his inaugurating victories, broke 
the Mexican spirit, and paved the way for Scott's still more 
brilliant triumphs, one of his first general orders when he took 
command at Tampico was to supply our default in Congress 
by proclaiming martial law, for the prevention and punishment 
of many crimes and offences not provided for by the rules and 
articles of war enacted by Congress in 1806. Various homi- 
cides, theft, rape, and other offences, desecration of churches, 
cemeteries, and other religious edifices and fixtures, interruption 
of religious ceremonies, destruction of either private or pubhc 
property, except by superior orders, were accordingly interdicted 
by martial, superadded to established military law; and its 
administration enforced with impartial justice on Americans 
and Mexicans alike, by military courts. General Worth from 
the advance of the army informed General Scott that martial 
law, in that spirit, administered, "took admirably, and produced 
more decided effects than all the blows from Palo Alto to Cerro 
Gordo." The English minister at Washington, Mr. Pakenham, 
who had been many years in that capacity in Mexico, declared 
his opinion that it would prove impossible for the American 
army to make good its way from La Vera Cruz to the City 
of Mexico. Baron Geroldt, the Prussian minister at Wash- 
ington, who also had been in that capacity in Mexico, pro- 
nounced the Mexican troops excellent soldiers. Which authori- 



MEXICAN WAR. 125 

tative doubts of American success are not mentioned to disparage 
jMexican arms, or exalt tlieir reversal. Vix ea nostra voco may be 
said of Scott and Taylor's victories, Avhcn dwelling on the much 
greater triumphs of humanity, of property, of religious and 
political liberty, which attended the march of the American 
armies. Numerous trials by their courts-martial were pub- 
lished, and are in print, exhibiting an administration of justice 
not surpassed by that of civil tribunals. Accused Mexicans 
and Americans were tried and acquitted, or condemned, fined, 
imprisoned and executed with undeniable impartiality. Pro- 
perty was held sacred. Churches were inviolate. That only and 
best police of all American government, a free press, accompanied 
the army, every where publishing all transactions. No Ameri- 
can officer pillaged or spoliated with impunity. No INIexican 
justly complained without redress. Booty Avas an unknown 
military acquisition. The invasion of Mexico, called also New 
Spain, by one hundred thousand American troops, produced no 
^lexican complaints of war, but of defeats. By French inva- 
sion and Spanish and English defence of Old Spain, horrible 
rapine, assassinations, and atrocities of all sorts perpetrated in 
dreadful conflict, contrasted with American humanised hostilities 
in Mexico, seem to be scarcely acts of the same mankind. 

So forbearing was the method of warfare in INIexico, while 
waged with never-failing victories, large hostile occupations of 
territory and occasional assessments of considerable forced 
contributions for the American army, yet with plunder so rare, 
supplies so punctually and faudy paid for, religion and property, 
both public and private, so uniformly respected, that IMexico, 
not undergoing the usual hardships of invasion, feeling the 
burdens of her own government and the distress of her popu- 
lation so much harder to bear than the inflictions of such con- 
querors, there was reason to apprehend, preferred such war to 
ordinary peace, and would protract the contest as an amelioration. 
It became, thereupon, a serious question for the American go- 
vernment, how to conduct so as to abridge the war ; and for the 
first time in the annals of hostilities, relinquish, instead of en- 
larging, conquered territory. While war was waged with com- 
plete success on terms of forbearance unknown in European war- 



126 MEXICAN WAE. 

fare, an original and pacific modification of hostilities was further- 
more introduced by the president's (Polk) instructions of the 23d 
of March, and the secretary of the treasury's (Walker) order 
of the 30th of March, 1847. Predicating the conqueror's 
unquestionable right to levy contributions on enemy's property 
for defraying belligerent expenses, to establish provisional civil 
government, and prescribe terms on which commerce might be 
permitted with and in the enemy's possessions, that generally 
much abused, and merely military power, was regulated so as 
to supply the conquering troops with funds, without arbitrary 
or burdensome contributions levied on the vanquished. All 
nations, instead of being forcibly excluded, or seduced by ex- 
ceptional clandestine licenses, were openly invited, English, 
French, Spanish, and other neutrals, to trade with Mexico, 
while occupied by American hostile forces ; paying a fair im- 
post on their importations, which was collected by naval and 
military American officers, and applied to the support of their 
troops. That original and admirable modification of belligerent 
power completed the humane and exemplary hostilities by which 
this country conquered peace, and with it large acquisitions of 
territory; which, great as they are, might and would have 
been much greater but for the spirit of moderation which 
actuated the American government. 

As a member of the select committee in Congress, charged 
with a report on the subject of that novel fiscal belligerent im- 
provement, I dissented from the Executive, deeming the Presi- 
dent alone authorized to enforce the imposts laid on INIexico ; 
because I consider that the clause in the Constitution, providing 
that Congress is "to make rules concerning captures on land and 
water," confers distinct powers not merely executive, but to be 
executed by an act of Congress, approved by the President. 
With that exception, in which I difier from many better able 
to judge, the power appeared to me in excellent keeping with 
the whole warfare waged. And as a member of Congress, 
sharing my humble portion of the labors, the risks and respon- 
bilities of both the British and the Mexican wars, I crave leave 
to add to this Historical Sketch of the first, with some reference 
to the last, that I have never felt reason to regret either war. 



MEXICAN AVAR. 127 

Frequent, protracted, ambitious war is national calamity. Such 
•war is inconsistent, if not incompatible with our popular insti- 
tutions, of which peace is the vital element. But, unless 
biassed by the interest I felt in the two mentioned, they were 
both beneficial to the patriotism, to the Union, the republic- 
anism, and, altogether, the progressive development of this, it 
must be confessed, however, yet experimental empire. Still, 
whatever be its duration or its fate, this American Republic 
has waged wars for rights and upon principles which neither 
Napoleon, Wellington nor Nelson ever practised, or indeed con- 
ceived. In no development of humanity has beneficial pro- 
gress been more signal than by this country in the rules, prac- 
tices and doctrines of that period of belligerent excitement, 
when all rules and doctrines are apt to be disregarded. 



CHAPTER III. 

FRENCH CONSULAR REPUBLIC. 

1799-1804. 

Tendency of the French Revolution to representative Government— French 
in America — Reciprocal Influences of American and French Revolutions 
— Bonaparte's Arrival from Egypt and irregular Election as Chief Ma- 
gistrate — Consulate — His Personal Habits, Temper, Appearance, Man- 
ners — Temperance — Economy — Religion — Politics — Family — Laetitia 
Ramolino, Mother of the Bonapartes — Arrighi — Cardinal Fesch — Elisa 
Bacchiochi — Iler Daughter Camarata — Pauline — Caroline — Achilles and 
Lucien Murat — Joseph's Wife and Family — Bonaparte's first Marriage — 
Josephine — Ilortensia and Eugene Beauharnois — Lucien Bonaparte — His 
Family — Louis — Jerome — Joseph — Treaty with the United States — 
Treaty of Amiens — Cornwallis — Consular Government — War by England 
—Royalist Plots — Count d'Artois—Pichcgru — Moreau — George Cadoudal 
— Duke of Enghein — His Execution — End of the Republic and beginning 
of the Empire. 

Since the English Revolution of 1688, and religious reforma- 
tion, free institutions, recognized as part of British government, 



128 FRENCH REPUBLIC. 

traditional and predominant in the United States before their 
independence, have been constantly progressive in most of Eu- 
rope, especially in France. The French Revolution of 1789, 
following the American of 1776, after sixty years' travail, is not, 
perhaps, yet at an end. Kings, monarchs, tribunes, directors, 
and emperors, have been expelled ; aristocracy has been extir- 
pated, and equality established. But liberty, tranquillity and 
republicanism, as liberty exists in England, tranquillity and 
republicanism in America, seem to be still impracticable, if not 
inconceivable, in that highly civilized and superior country, so 
long giving impressions to others ; which is not surprising when 
the prepossessions of a thousand years are to be uprooted. 
Years are of small account in the annals of nations, which tell 
by centuries. But for more than the last half century, the 
French have been habituated to popular establishments; oftener 
than any other country in the world, not excepting this, have, 
chosen chief magistrates by absolutely universal suffrage ; and in 
the attainment of equality, which is one great element of free- 
dom, they are a free people — much freer than the English, or 
even the Americans. In accomplishing that great emancipation, 
their dictator-emperor was a principal agent. For heroes and 
sages, Napoleon was well aware, are instruments of overruling 
Providence to bring about unlooked-for results; unconscious 
destroyers of what they labor to create ; and creators of Avhat 
they endeavor to destroy. French monarchs, Bourbons and 
Bonapartes, are a necessary part of the means to reform and 
meliorate, by forcibly destroying venerable prejudices and in- 
veterate habits, and introducing equality with liberty among the 
most influential people of Europe. Both time and force were 
indispensable ; time, the greatest of all innovators, and surest, 
if not the only sure; and the force of reaction against des- 
potism vrhen re-established, as by Napoleon and Charles X., as 
well as resistance to it when inherited, though mitigated,by Louis 
XVI. The French, deemed uncommonly impressionable and 
inconstant, are still amazingly the same identical people de- 
scribed by Csesar, when he overran Gaul two thousand years 
ago. Napoleon called himself executor of the will of the au- 
thors of the French Revolution, with whom the establishment 



FRENCH REPUBLIC. 129 

of equality began, which he completed, and of liberty, which he 
labored to destroy, or at least put off. Louis XVIII. was 
obliged to concede many free institutions, which Charles X. 
was expelled for attempting to overthrow. And Louis Philippe 
was dethroned by a republic, which, however imperfectly, had 
been sixty years inchoate. 

There are intelligent, virtuous and religious men in all coun- 
tries, who deny that liberty and equality, freedom of the press, 
universal education and suffrage, and other mostly considered 
advantages of republican or representative government, are 
meliorations of the condition of mankind. Notwithstanding 
Napoleon's much-vaunted prediction, that men would soon be 
Cossack or republican, the present century witnessed Russian 
conquerors in the capital of France less destructive or bar- 
barous than French in that of Russia. Still, as a fact, it is l^ 
indisputable that, since the American and French revolutions, 
there are more liberty and equality, greater diffusion of pro- 
perty and education, less privilege, the poor are richer, the rich 
are less so, all government is milder and more popular, than 
before ; and the universal tendency, American, European, 
Asiatic and African, is to still further progress in those ways. 
Whether beneficial or not, the progress is undeniable, and pro- 
bably irresistible. 

This chapter, then, proposes American views of European 
and universal progress, if not originated, at leasi much accele- 
rated, and best exemplified, by America ; of which progress kings 
and emperors have all been agents, the most puissant and effectual 
of all. Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and Jay, conspicuous leaders 
in American progress, both learned and taught k in Europe. 
Lafayette, Louis Philippe, Yolney, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, 
Joseph Bonaparte, and other less conspicuous, yet distinguished 
French, as late as Tocqueville and President Bonaparte, en- 
larged European free thoughts by personal communion with y 
American actuality. / The most formidable of despots, with X 
all his heart and mlglit, not only extu*pated privilege and cor- 
roborated equality, but provoked and promoted liberty by 
equality, and, by reaction against his own tyranny, disparaged 
monarchy. By bolstering three brothers and three sisters on 

Vol. IIL — 9 



130 FEENCH REVOLUTIOX. 

tottering thrones, creating bastard aristocracy by spawning 
nobles without privileges, the only sure support of nobility, 
and at last by divorcing a plebeian French wife, representing 
popular sovereignty, in order to marry a foreign princess born 
to divine right, thus rejecting the corner-stone of his monarchy, 
Napoleon brought contempt, debility and insecurity on royal 
and noble establishments. The crown which, by a snatch, 
emblematic of his empire, he placed on his own head, he en- 
vironed by eight more crowns, inconsistent with all examples, 
which, by force of arms, he put on the heads of his own house- 
hold ; — a Spanish crown on the head of his brother Joseph, a 
Dutch one on that of his brother Louis, a German on that of his 
brother Jerome, a Neapolitan on one sister's head, a Tuscan on 
another sister's, an Italian viceroyalty on a step-son, a Baden 
ducal crown on a wife's cousin, and the only, brother who would 
not submit to wear a crown, he drove into exile in an enemy's 
country. Nine crowned heads in one family, born to poverty 
and educated by charity, not only declared but anxiously de- 
signed to be developments of the revolutionary principle of pro- 
gress, could hardly fail to promote that democratic emancipation 
from royalty which is the great characteristic of this age. In- 
vaded Spain was freed by it from ecclesiastical and political 
abuses. All Spanish America revolted from royal colonial to 
free government. Incomparably the greatest and wisest hero, 
and by no means one of the worst men of modern times, who, by 
such infatuated furtherance of revolution, laid republican repre- 
sentative foundations broad and deep, ascribed, in the agonies 
and bitter repentance of downfall, imprisonment, and lingering 
death, his ruin to the Spanish invasion and Austrian marriage, 
to noble and royal connexions, crowns, coronets and decorations, 
which, he said, concealed with flowers the abyss into which ho 
fell. His royal French predecessor, and his three royal French 
s-uccessors, the Bourbons, by errors as egregious and fatal as 
those of Emperor Bonaparte's, helped him to alienate mankind 
from monarchy, and turn their minds to representative republi- 
canism, as more rational and respectable. If, after sixty years 
of revolution, should such be the result, no reformers will have 
contributed so much to it as iconoclastic monarchs. By repre- 



FREXrH REVOLUTION. 131 

sentative government, I understand that Avhicli is not ruled by 
monarcbs by divine right, but by popular suffrage. A monarchy, 
like those of Belgium and Brazil, and perhaps England, may be 
freer in its institutions than a republic. The Roman Empire 
Avas a republic with emperors. A republican chief magistrate 
may be more powerful and more absolute than a king. But 
where the people are sovereign, and not the king, except as 
representing the people, that may be deemed representative 
and popular govenment. In that view of the subject. Great 
Britain, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Belgium, Prussia, and some 
of the German kingdoms, are representative, though without 
elective chief magistrates. In France, suffrage is really uni- 
versal ; and however arbitrary the government may be, it is not 
absolute by divine right, as before the American and French 
Revolutions. Americans are apt to think that revolution does 
nothing, when it dethrones a king, unless it establishes a demo- 
cratic republic in his stead. Whereas such kingly governments, 
as several established within the last sixty years, are both repre- 
sentative and free, though not democratic. 

Avoiding the beaten track, historical and biographical, of the 
many writers who have described these events and personages 
in their European aspects, my pui'pose is to present their Ame- 
rican connexions and influences. French royal interposition in 
the American revolution is familiar knowledge ; and American 
personal agency in that of France. But French princes and 
personages coming to or going from America, and performing im- 
portant parts in France, may be shown in American lights, and 
developed with republican edification. Larochefoucauld, Louis 
Philippe, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, Hyde de Nieuville, and 
other eminent royalists; A^'olnoy, Brissot, La Fayette, and 
Moreau, republicans ; Joseph Bonaparte, with several more of 
his family, besides Grouchy, Clausel, Real, Regnault, sons of 
Ney, of Lannes, and of Fouche, outcasts, in America, of the 
French Empire, recurring from Marbois, in 1779, to Tocque- 
ville, in 1832, supply French incidents and characters for 
American history, on which, though the last chapter cannot 
perhaps be given, yet several prior ones abound with xVmerican 
instruction. 



132 FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Napoleon's invasion of Spain, and attempt to seat his brother 
Joseph on the Spanish throne, (by its transatlantic reactions as 
much American as European,) were events in full progress 
during our war of 1812. Napoleon's invasion of Russia that 
year, was not only simultaneous with our war, but by many 
Americans, and nearly all Englishmen, our resistance of Eng- 
land was said to be the direct and time-serving offspring of his 
attack of Russia. Hyde de Nieuville, in 1813, from New 
Jersey, engaged Moreau to embark for the north of Europe, 
there, in Russian service and uniform — English pay and cause 
— to take up arms against Napoleon and France. The first 
subjugation of France, and abdication of the emperor, in April, 
1814, took place in the midst of our contest, his martial star 
waning just as ours radiated. His final overthrow and abdica- 
tion, in June 1815, occurred before our hostilities ceased by the 
treaty of Ghent. His selection of this country for his residence, 
abortive attempt to come here, surrender to Admiral Hotham, 
just from our coast, and transportation to St. Helena, in cus- 
tody of Admiral Cockburn, infamous in American hostilities, are 
hardly foreign to our annals. His brother Joseph lived five- 
and-twenty years among us, frequented by eminent Frenchmen, 
at his residence in New Jersey. Mexico tendered, in New 
Jersey, to him who had declined the crown of Lombardy, and 
wore the crowns of Naples and of Spain, a fourth and an Ame- 
rican crown. La Fayette there proffered Joseph Bonaparte his 
co-operation to dethrone Louis XVIII. Thence Lallemand 
went to found a nation in Texas ; Grouchy and Clause! to plant 
vineyards in Alabama. Thence, when La Fayette made Louis 
Philippe king, Joseph protested, and sent one of Fouche's sons 
to Vienna, to bring forth the young Napoleon. In these events 
America is concerned, and was engaged, whose truths remain 
to- be made known with American independence, in their Euro- 
pean consequences and universal moral. And Joseph Bona- 
parte's intercourse, while in England, with his brothers Lucien 
and Jerome, and Avith his nephew, now president of the French 
Republic, and with several of the prominent French then striving 
to restore the empire, since conspicuous republican representa- 
tives, belong altogether to the same narrative. 



FRENCH REVOLUTION. 133 

"For some of these disclosures mine are accidently peculiar 
advantages. Of the Spanish American revolutions, except that 
of Mexico, I am aware of no complete history, and my limited 
information is mostly derived from hooks or other puhlications. 
But of the Spanish invasion, its antecedents, accompaniments, 
and consequences ; of the advent, government, real character, 
abdications, overthrow of, and of the family of Napoleon, I am 
better informed, by five-and-twenty years' intimacy with Joseph 
Bonaparte, than any other who has wi'itten in English concern- 
ing them. Frenchmen, if acquainted with the realities known to 
me, could hardly publish them without partiality, nor English- 
men without prejudice. My source of information being Bona- 
parte's most intimate and confidential brother, cannot be 
entirely free from bias, neither mine or his ; for, as Napoleon 
was a man exceedingly fascinating, so Joseph was very winning. 
Yet I deem it a great American qualification for these dis- 
closures to be free from that awe of sovereigns, and deference 
for personages, which in Europe are traditional impressions that 
can hardly be got rid of. From Joseph Bonaparte's familiar 
and confidential personal intercourse ; from his library, con- 
taining all the modern memoirs and other French historical 
works, constantly explained by him and margined with notes in 
his writing ; from, therefore, the highest, though they may be 
biassed, sources of information, I derive my materials. 

A French republic had survived dreadful intestine commo- 
tions and foreign wars during seven or eight years, when, in 
1799, during our contest with France, England united Russia 
with Austria in another coalition against Republican France. 
Souvaroff drove the French from Bonaparte's conquests in 
Italy ; an English and Russian army undertook to reconquer 
Holland. On his way through Switzerland to France, Souva- 
rofi" was defeated by Massena, at Zurich, the 19th of September ; 
and on the 24th of that month the Duke of York was still more 
completely worsted by Brune, in Holland. Notwithstanding 
that revival of French afiairs, the plural executive, by a quin- 
tuple directory, proved inefficient and unsatisfactory, one of 
the five directors, Barras, a handsome, pompous, plausible, 
vapid, worthless nobleman, sold himself to Louis XVIII., who 



134 BONAPARTE. 

Avas not without reason to expect the restoration of what he 
always called and considered his throne ; when, on the 14th of 
October, 1799, Bonaparte most unexpectedly returned from 
Egypt. Never to make or force an opportunity was one of 
his axioms ; but when they present themselves, instantly to 
seize and make the most of them. After a voyage and 
escape from capture at sea, by incredible chances, his arrival in 
France, just then, was one of those timely strokes of fortune 
that seldom occur. A few months, either sooner or later, he 
might have been tried by court martial for leaving Egypt, and 
utterly disgraced. But just exactly when it took place, the 
occasion was supremely propitious. Accustomed to be ruled by 
some heroic master, Mirabeau, Robespierre, or Danton, in the 
tribune, Dumouriez, La Fayette, or Moreau, in arms, the French 
hailed Bonaparte, with enthusiastic welcome, as their chief. 
Still, although discontented with their rulers, the nation was 
republican. Aristocracy insists that France requires or pre- 
fers a monarch. A strong executive and government they 
admire and require. But during thirteen years, from 1790 to 
1803, they were used to the forms, terms, and some of the 
substance of republicanism. As republicans they fell in love 
with Bonaparte, and chose him at all events ; but not for a 
king, or with royal attributes. Multitudinous attachment to a 
person, sometimes blindly and inexplicably conceived, manifests 
itself like irresistible sexual love for an individual, enrapturing 
whole communities as it does one or two of them. Bona- 
parte was so popular that leaders were constrained to follow 
the populace in not an irrational or vulgar attachment, much 
less sectional or merely metropolitan. The health laws, in 
rigorous force against Egypt, that land of the plague, were, 
by common consent, suspended for his landing at Frejus ; his 
journey thence to Paris was a continual ovation ; his arrival at 
the capital, the 16th of October, 1799, transported that city 
with joy. Sedate and thoughtful men were intoxicated with 
delight. Of the five directors three, Barras, Sieyes, and Ducos, 
resigned to make room for him as chief magistrate. Sieyes, 
who, as Joseph Bonaparte has told me, and most men agreed, 
was not only a highly intelligent, but an uncommonly firm and 



BONAPARTE. 135 

resolute republican, -with Duces, another member of the Direc- 
tory, concerted with Bonaparte the measures for his elevation 
to the chief magistracy. The only two, a minority of the five 
directors, Moulin and Gohier, who did not join in the niove- 
nient, were imprisoned in their official residence, thcLuxem- 
bourg palace, where Moreau, with detachments of soldiers, con- 
descended to confine them. To further Bonaparte's elevation, 
La Fayette, not long before liberated by Bonaparte's first 
treaty (Campo Formio) with Austria, from his long imprison- 
ment at Olrautz, appeared gratified with his promotion ; and 
till his chief magistracy was prolonged from one year to ten, 
continued on friendly terms with him. Even then, when he 
publicly gave a qualified vote against the change, he wrote to 
Bonaparte in strong terms of gratitude and admiration, but 
requiring that liberty should be guarantied before he would 
consent to a Consulate for life. Still, as it was, he voted for 
Napoleon Bonaparte as the fittest for the place. The noble 
and winning Talleyrand, republican secretary of state for foreign 
afiairs, with his infallible prescience of forthcoming power, set 
politicians and fashionable cii'cles the example of political and 
hospitable worship of the rising sun, in whose beams nearly all 
the leading civil and military men, together with the whole 
crowd of waiters on power, and seekers of fortune, prostrated 
themselves in emulous adoration. Talleyrand, a citizen of the 
United States, and of the State of Pennsylvania, and Moreau, 
an American denizen, were among the principal promoters of 
Bonaparte from military to political chieftainship, as La Fay- 
ette, another American citizen, was, with Talleyrand, a chief 
agent in effiscting his downfall. More than any individual 
contribution, however, American principles of freedom were 
operative in his establishment, then professed and practised 
by him, as by royal appeals to the people of Germany and the 
other countries, roused and combined for his overthrow, in 1814, 
those principles were more efiectual than arms in overcoming him. 
In the power of popularity, in all but denomination and form, 
Bonaparte was master in 1799. So universal, instantaneous, 
vehement, and authoritative was public attachment to him, that 
the government had hardly any option but to float with the 



136 BONAPAHTE. 

current wlilcli it Avould li:ivc been vain to endeavor to withstand. 
Nor was the favor either merely military or metropolitan, much 
less' plebeian, but the sentiment of all classes and the whole na- 
tion, so strong as to be irresistible. The executive directory, the 
ministry, many members of the legislative bodies, the scientific, 
the aristocratic, the people, all leaped together to embrace T>o- 
naparte, concerted and hurried what may almost be called his 
election rather than usurpation, for it was the ardent and spon- 
taneous desire of nearly all France. 

The legislative bodies, however, the Ancients and the Council 
of Five Hundred, as well as Sieyes and others of the Execu- 
tive, Avere not only republican, but contained many of the most 
radical revolutionists, nearly all opposed to royalty, especially 
to a Bourbon king, devoted to the reforms introduced by the 
revolution, and who would have never submitted to Bonaparte 
as a monarch by any title, or with monarchical attributes. Lu- 
cien, an inflexible democrat of many years' standing, was presi- 
dent of the Council of Five Hundred, of which Joseph was also 
a member, then of declared republican sentiments, and during 
all his life, even as king, constantly opposed to many royal and 
aristocratical establishments, which he sincerely disliked and 
abolished in Naples and Spain. To overcome the resistance 
of the legislative bodies to unconstitutional or anti-republican 
change, Joseph performed his part to make Napoleon a 
republican chief magistrate, by those conciliatory means which 
wore Joseph's uniform and natural predilections in all stations 
and circumstances. Lucien executed his part of the same de- 
sign with the bold decision that never failed him. Napoleon 
performing his part with irresolution, nearly defeated the Avhole 
arrangement. It may be that then, and even before his return 
from Egypt, he contemplated a crown for his brows. He was 
not a democratic republican, if republican at all ; but, disgusted 
with the revolutionary excesses, perhaps deemed a monarch 
necessary to France. Joseph's sentiments were extremely 
liberal. Lucien was certainly inimical to monarchy ; and Na- 
poleon, if ho ambitioned a throne, was obliged to disclaim and 
oppose divine right to it, because popular sovereignty was his 
only stepping-stone. Representative government, in some 



BONAPARTE. 137 

form, probably monarchical reformed and defined by a -written 
constitution, was indispensable to his elevation, whether re- 
publican or monarchical. 

Within three weeks after Napoleon's arrival from Egypt, 
the movement was contrived and effected. On the 10th of 
November, 1799, the Council of Ancients, by resolution, in 
order to avoid the disturbance of mobs, clubs, and populace of 
a large city, directed the seat of government to be transferred 
from Paris to St. Cloud, a village five miles off, where there is 
a public building since become famous for many of the most 
important of Bonaparte's transactions. The removal was di- 
rected to take place under the command of General Bonaparte, 
at whose disposal the garrison of Paris, the regular troops of 
that military district, and the national guards, were all placed 
for that purpose. Thus empowered, both he and the Ancients 
posted up denunciations of the directorial government, and took 
measures for the change of administration next day, which was 
accomplished without bloodshed, but not without some military 
force, considerable opposition, and difficulty. AVhen Fouche, the 
minister of police, proposed strong measures of control for 
public tranquillity, Bonaparte overruled them. " What do we 
want with repression," said he, "when we have the public will 
with us, and no object but public good?" When Sieyes pro- 
posed to arrest some forty, denounced as demagogues, members 
of the clubs, Bonaparte objected. "No," said he, "I have 
sworn to protect the national representation, and have no fear 
of such feeble assailants." The leaders of every party coin- 
cided in him as their fittest choice. The alternative between 
anarchy and order, he attached himself to the party of 
moderate republicans, and as their choice changed the govern- 
ment. 

As soon as the Council of Five Hundred were organised at 
St. Cloud, several members in succession rapidly mounted the 
tribune, and vehemently protested against the removal of the 
seat of government from Paris. Angry discussion arose. It 
was insisted that every member should renew his oath to the 
constitution, which was resolved by acclamation. Each mem- 
ber, therefore, took the oath, adding that he would oj>posc the 



138 BOKAPAETE. 

establisliment of tyranny. They were proceeding to elect a 
director in Barras's place, wliose resignation was handed to . 
Lucien in the chair, wdien the hall-door opened, and a body of 
soldiers entered, who stationed themselves about the entrance, 
while Bonaparte mounted the tribune. For any soldier of the 
Republic to enter the hall of legislation, without leave, was as 
unlawful in France as it would be in America or England. 
"Outlaw! dictator! down with him!" resounded from all parts 
of the hall. Bonaparte turned pale, seemed stupefied, paused, 
disconcerted and alarmed, took the arm of an officer, and slowly 
withdrew, — calling however on the soldiers, as he passed out, 
to crush whoever called him an outlaw. So denounced, his 
career began and ended. French republicans applied to him, 
in 1799, the same stigma by which allied sovereigns raised 
all Europe against him in 1815 — outlaw. Irresolution, which 
at Fontainebleau in 1814, and at Paris in 1815, ensured and 
hastened his fall, endangered his rise in 1799. lie was 
not an iron-nerved man. Lucien and Sieyes at both his 
outset and his end showed more resolution than Napoleon, 
as I have heard Joseph say, in effect, respecting the last 
abdication. And I have heard Moreau several times speak 
with strong contempt of Bonaparte's courage ; of which, though 
there can be no doubt, yet it probably was not of that adaman- 
tine, or as some wovild say, apathetic kind, which nothing could 
disturb, — such as, probably, Moreau's was. Joseph told me 
that the first time he ever saw Marshal Suchet, then a captain, 
he was running away pale and frightened. Nelson was not a 
man of imperturbable courage, nor was Frederick the Great. 
It is said that the Emperor xilexander, at the battle of Auster- 
litz, was ludicrously alarmed. A member of Joseph's royal 
family in Spain, told me that Soult was nervous in battle and 
danger, and Sebastiani, a bold dragoon, (since marshal,) 
absolutely timorous. Lucien sat perfectly collected and un- 
daunted in the president's chair ; and, as soon as Napoleon 
was gone, attempted to palliate his intrusion. But the 
Council, not appeased, were about ordering Napoleon to their 
bar for censure, when Lucien sent him notice, and that they 
two must have a conference, but that he did not like to leave 



BONAPARTE. 139 

the presidency while the Council were so much irritated against 
his brother. Napoleon then ordered troops into the hall to escort 
Lucien out, who, with admirable self-possession, saying that it 
did not become him to preside and put questions implicating 
his brother, calmly took off his official robe, laid it down on 
the chair, and left the hall ; in the castle court mounted a horse, 
and from the saddle harangued the troops ; as presiding officer 
and as citizen, calling on them and all bystanders to expel those 
members of the Five Hundred who refused, as legislators, to 
obey the lawful commander. "Long live the Republic !" was 
Lucien's exordium. Thus authorised and urged, the soldiers 
again marched into the hall, headed by Le Clerc, the husband 
of Pauline Bonaparte, drums beating the charge, and by force 
expelled the members, who were debating as the troops entered ; 
but Le Clerc, by beat of drum, drowned all vociferation, and 
to the letter, amidst arms the laAV was silenced. Members re- 
monstrated and resisted, but were subdued, and without actual 
force beyond intimidation, at the point of the bayonet, gra- 
dually removed from their seats. 

The Council of Ancients, after some delay and excitement, 
officially informed that four of the directors had resigned, and 
that the fifth was confined by order of General Bonaparte, were 
debating at the moment when he appeared at their door. 
Several members inviting him to the tribune, he addressed the 
body from it ; with animation, thus encouraged, denouncing the 
government. Then turning to the troops stationed about the 
entrance, he called on them to crush whoever dared to pro- 
nounce their general an outlaw; and, again speaking to the 
Chamber, said he would leave them to determine what to do, 
and that their orders he would execute. Debate, resumed 
as soon as he was gone, lasted till several members an- 
nounced that the Council of Five Hundred was dissolved, most 
of whom had returned to Paris. About fifty remained, who 
reorganised as the Council ; and that evening, in concert with 
the Ancients, sitting all night, enacted a provisional executive 
commission, consisting of Sieyes, Duces, and Bonaparte, de- 
nominated Consuls of the Republic, invested with dictatorial 
powers, and charged to establish order in the administration, 



140 BONAPARTE. 

tranquillity within and peace abroad. Both legislative bodies 
then adjourned till the 20th of February, 1800; for three 
months surrendering the government to the Consuls, of whom 
Bonaparte forthwith became chief. 

Just thirty years of age, in the last five or six of them 
Bonaparte bounded from victory to victory, with miraculous 
fortune, to the pinnacle of fame and power, with scarce a blot 
on his bright and brilliant glory ; honest, chaste, modest, 
temperate, disinterested, studious, and exemplary as a man ; 
magnificent in heroism : though not a man of fashion, with 
what commonly passes for elegance of manners, yet, by su- 
perior talents, information, and amiable anxiety to please, the 
true essence of politeness, fascinating as a gentleman, and 
commanding as a governor. It cannot be said that he at- 
tained chief-magistracy without secret preconcert and circum- 
vention. Yet nearly all the best men of France supported 
him, whose union with the great body of the people for his 
elevation cannot be called conspiracy, or his election mere 
usurpation. The forms of national suffrage did not indeed 
precede, sanction, and recommend it ; but there was infinitely 
less fraud or force than in the great British revolution, which 
placed William III. on the throne, or the prior convulsions 
which deposed Charles, inaugurated Cromwell, and then re- 
stored another Stuart. Nor in Bonaparte's election to chief- 
magistracy was there the least allusion to monarchy, except 
to disown it. Napoleon, Joseph, and Lucien, with all their 
adherents, constantly proclaimed republicanism. To exclude 
the Bourbons was an avowed and favorite, nearly unanimous, 
object. Their royalty had hardly any supporters left in France 
till Bonaparte's politic moderation brought them back. Re- 
publicans like La Fayette were rare — they are so always. 
But there was a leaven in the mass, like the apostles who 
introduced Christianity, or the propagators of free trade in 
England, and in this country, a small, pertinacious band of 
invincible teachers constantly acting on the people, by whom 
public sentiment was originated and eventually regulated. The 
people were taught, and, however ignorant, the peasantry 
learned that they ought to be represented in government. 



BONAPARTE. 141 

All French histories, biographies, and recollections of that 
period concur in the unquestionable existence of numerous re- 
publicans, imbued with the principles of 1789, Free govern- 
ment, -whether the chief-magistrate should be hereditary or 
elective, a ti-ibune, or place where orators may lawfully incul- 
cate liberty, with a free press to maintain it, no privileged class, 
but official preferment open to all, were principles inherited 
by Bonaparte from the revolution, which he pledged himself to 
perpetuate. Without Voltaire, INIontesquieu, and other pen- 
men, to proclaim what he and the swordsmen established, it 
never would have been. Whether pen and sword combined 
have succeeded in finally altogether uprooting mediaeval prepos- 
sessions, may yet be disputed. But that representative go- 
vernment and popular sovereignty have made progress since 
1776 in this country, and 1789 in that, is unquestionable. 
The end may not be yet ; and may never be democratic in 
Europe. But representative and popular it is already ; and 
in that reform Bonaparte, Avhether willing, accidental, or 
averse, was immensely instrumental. 

Three years afterwards, in the autumn of 1802, 1 saw Bona- 
parte, then Consul for life, with authority to appoint his suc- 
cessor, which advance on monarchy he had already reached. 
By the treaty of Amiens, in March 1801, England, with all 
the rest of the world, recognised in his person not a king or 
emperor by title, but a French ruler with great power and at- 
tributes. Paris was full of English ; their handsome ambas- 
sador Lord Yfhitworth, with his wife, the Duchess of Dorset, 
Fox, Erskine, Lord Henry Petty, since Marquis of Lans- 
downe, with his Swiss tutor Dumont, the intimate of Jeremy 
Bentham and Romilly, Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord 
Ashburton, with his American wife and her father, ex-Senator 
of the LTnited States, William Bingham, and other distin- 
guished persons, whom I met, and Joseph Bonaparte, at the 
house of the American minister, Robert R. Livingston. Like 
most American ministers in France, Mr. Livingston far exceeded 
his salary in sustaining elegant hospitality. Mr. Bingham, too, 
lived elegantly and hospitably; and Franklin's grandson, 
Temple Franklin, on a smaller scale, kept a gay and handsome 



142 BONAPARTE. 

home. Rufus King, the American minister in EngUmd, with 
whom I went from London to Paris, did not care to be presented 
at the Consular court ; and even if he had been, I was not 
within the regulations established for that honor ; so that I saw 
the First Consul only at his reviews and the opera, and my 
description of him, partly from personal observation, must be 
made up chiefly from that of others. The small bronze, full- 
length statue of Creneral Bonaparte, bequeathed to me by Jo- 
seph Bonaparte's will, is a good likeness of Napoleon's person 
as I saw him, thin and pallid, with a mild and languid Italian 
expression. It has the queue Avhich he wore in Italy, and I 
believe Egypt, with large locks of hair over the ears, instead 
of the chesnut crop which, as I stood near him in the Tuilleries, 
I saw him brush up with one hand while he held his hat in the 
other. His personal appearance then was perhaps most re- 
markable for its extreme dissimilitude to his colossal character : 
not only uncommonly small, but looking still more diminutive 
and young, owing to a smooth, almost beardless, and unpre- 
tending countenance, without any thing martial or imposing 
in his air or manner. He looked, I thought, like a modest 
midshipman. His height was but five feet two inches, French 
measure, equal to five feet seven inches English or American. 
Between Bonaparte as I saw him, slender, pale, and small, and 
the Emperor Napoleon, grown fat and stout, there must have 
been considerable difference of appearance. But as the bones, 
limbs, features, and structure remained the same, in describing 
him, mostly from Abel Hugo's and Meneval's accounts, whose 
opportunities were the best, almost as good as Joseph Bona- 
parte's, who presented them to me as perfectly trustworthy, 
I shall not distinguish between the slender Consul and the cor- 
pulent Emperor. Handling a ramrod at the siege of Toulon, 
he caught from it, as was supposed, an itch which became, ten 
years afterwards, very difficult to cure. Being extremely neat 
and cleanly, perhaps to counteract that distress of the skin 
he used himself to excessive hot bathing, generally in perfumed 
water, which, or something else, tended to make him much 
fatter than either of his brothers or sisters ; in fact, the only 
fat member of the family, though Joseph grew round and 



BONAPARTE. 143 

plump, rendering tlie resemblance, between liim and the em- 
peror very striking. Malevolence falsely imputed many dis- 
eases to Napoleon ; but he enjoyed robust and almost unin- 
terrupted health. He was said by many to be a profuse 
snuff-taker, which was not the case. The story of his having 
a side-pocket for snuff, is a mere fable. He took no stimulants 
at all, and preferred the simplest diet. If he ever carried 
snuff in his pocket, it must have been when he was with the 
army and anxious. At home, the officers of his guard, the 
aid-de-camp on duty, his first valet-de-chambre, carried well- 
stored snuff-boxes, in which he put his fingers ; and he had 
one himself, besides several that were in his various apartments : 
all of which gave the impression of his being much of a snuff- 
taker, when he merely fingered, smelt, and threw it away. He 
used the finest white cambric pocket-handkerchief, Avore a white 
cassimere vest and small-clothes, and sometimes soiled them with 
snuff, as occasionally he made black pencil marks on them. 
Broad shoulders and the development of his breast indicated 
a strong constitution ; which was proved by his undergoing the 
severest fatigue and privation of all kinds, at all times, in all 
places ; Avalking, riding, writing, studying, labor both bodily 
and mental, vigils, exposure, hardships, and every variety of 
climate. He passed nearly the whole night preceding the 
battle of Jena holding light to help the men dragging cannon 
out of a deep ravine, in which it was jammed. When the 
I French army in Spain, under Soult, began its march after 
Moore, of a stormy day in February, snow, sleet, and rain 
! driving with a piercing wind in their faces, the emperor Avalked 
j with the first platoon, in order to set the men an example of cheer- 
[ ful endurance. During m'ost of his life, he appeared equally 
j insensible to fatigue and indifferent to weather, walked or rode 
j any distance or time, without rest, in all seasons, and then im- 
1 mediately dictated state papers, letters, or other public articles, 
' during many hours more, Avithout rest or refreshment. Preli- 
\ minary to the battle of Wagram, he was sixty consecutive hours, 
I almost the whole time on horseback, riding incredible distances 
! on relays of horses to superintend the preparations. And 
Marshal Grouchy told me that when the tired emperor was 



144 BONAPARTE. 

satisfied, from the combinations and manoeuvres, that the battle 
was gained, — though the conflict was still furiously raging, — 
he dismounted, threw himself on the ground, fell asleep instantly, 
and slept soundly under a shower of balls, while a body-guard, 
of which the command was given to General Grouchy, protected 
his rest. Once seeing some officers seeking shelter from a 
heavy shower of rain, to mark his contempt for effeminacy he 
stationed himself under the spout of a house, where the water 
poured down on him. In the Polish campaigns he bore the 
severe winter, with what he called the new element of mud, 
sleeping in out-houses, without sufficient clothing, and submitting 
to other discomforts, not only uncomplainingly, but gaily and 
ostentatiously. Though extremely nice in his dress, he disap- 
proved of all foppery and extravagance of costume. Every 
morning he flesh-brushed his breast and arms, and his valet 
rubbed severely his back and shoulders. Till 1803 he was 
shaved ; after that time, when he changed his valet, he always 
shaved himself, washed in a large silver basin like a tub, and 
sponged his hair with Cologne water. He changed his flannel 
jacket, white cassimere vest and pantaloons, every day. His 
dress was always the same, green or blue regimentals. His 
imperial allowance of sixty thousand francs (twelve thousand 
dollars), he reduced to twenty thousand francs, (two thousand 
dollars,) for the toilet and clothing. With twelve hundred 
francs (two hundred and fifty dollars) a year, and a horse, he 
used to say, he had no need of any more. He was fond 
of boasting of his rigid economy, when the English drove his 
family from their property in Corsica, and dwelt with great 
satisfaction on the privations he underwent to avoid debt, while 
from his pay he educated his broth'er Louis. He was always 
an economist, though never covetous ; constantly exhorted his 
officers, when loading them with money, " not to plunder, and 
I'll make it up to you more than if you did. In private be 
saving and even parsimonious; but magnificent in public," — 
which was his own system in dress, at table, and in his Avhole 
household avoiding extravagance and show, except in public 
representation. He had no fixed hours for either business, 
meals, or sleep; but in general entered his cabinet at seven 



BONAPARTE. 145 

o'clock, dressed for the Tvhole day iu his invariable costume, 
•white cassimere vest and breeches, and green chasseur coat, ex- 
cept on Sundays and reception days, when he wore a blue coat 
with white lapelles, a colonel's epaulets, with the decorations 
of the Legion of Honor and iron crown at his button-hole, the 
badge of the Legion of Honor and the broad riband under his 
coat. He always wore white silk stockings and oval gold 
buckles in his shoes, except when he changed them for boots 
lined with silk ; and in order to save time, would not change his 
stockings. At nine o'clock he received the officers of his im- 
mediate service, and then persons having a right by the dignity 
of their stations, to personal interviews with him. At ten he 
breakfasted in a small parlor adjoining his cabinet. Breakfast 
seldom lasted more than ten minutes, though he prolonged it 
as he liked ; and during that meal received scientific and lite- 
rary men, or artists, Avith whom he loved to chat. After break- 
fast followed business with ministers and other public affairs. 
Six o'clock was his dinner hour, but he never kept it punctually ; 
neglecting it if engaged in any important business. He dined 
alone with the empress, except Wednesdays, when the ministers 
were invited, and on Sunday there was always a family dinner. 
Napoleon ate none but the simplest food ; drank no wine but 
Chambertin, and that always well watered ; never any kind of 
spirituous liquor. One of the coffee-cups he commonly used 
is in my family ; of plain Italian china and fashion, with 
nothing about it remarkable but the reminiscence. It was one 
of a number of articles familiarly used by Napoleon, which 
were divided by his family among themselves, after his death, 
and presented to me by Joseph's testamentary executor. There 
is a small pocket volume of Napoleon's maxims, all of which 
are instructive, and some excellent : one is that whoever dines 
eats too much ; the moral of which is, that instead of the mo- 
derate meal of simple food that satisfies nature, luxurious 
dinners provoke excess and disease. 

His Italian and Egyptian attachments long continued ; 
though he had never been in Italy till he went as commander 
of the army, and could speak none of the language but the 
very little he picked up in his campaigns. Oiu- Italians and 

Vol. IIL — 10 



146 BONAPARTE. 

our Egyptians lie used to call the officers who had served with 
him in those countries. Long after he returned from Egypt 
he ate pillau and dates, and admired many Egyptian customs. 
Once at a dinner he gave there to a number of the principal 
men, he asked one of them to tell him what he (the sheik) per- 
ceived most remarkable in the French mode of eating. " Why," 
said the Egyptian, "your drinking when you eat." That is, 
to provoke appetite foi' food by drink when eating, was contrary 
to their system of diet and health, which satisfied hunger and 
thirst each by itself, never the tAvo together, provoking eating 
to excess by drinking with it. 

I never saw, I may add, a person — not even a lady — more 
abstemious of drink than Joseph Bonaparte, who always took a 
little wine both at breakfast and dinner, but very little, and 
that little even champagne diluted with water. But he ate 
heartily, and, as I thought, of meat excessively, in proportion 
to what he drank. According to my notion, it would have 
been more wholesome for him, and others I have known like 
him in that respect, to eat less meat and drink more wine. 
At Joseph's always excellent table, there was no such variety 
or luxury of liquors as is not uncommon at many tables ; 
Madeira, Sauterne, and Champagne the principal, if not the 
only, wines. Napoleon took one cup of coffee at breakfast, 
and one in the drawing-room after dinner. Joseph learned in 
this country to prefer tea ; rising with the dawn, and, after his 
morning dram of a cup of green tea, going out with his hatchet 
and workmen, planting, grubbing, pruning, and superintending 
work in the open air till between ten and eleven, when he went 
in to breakfast. Without the day-light cup of imperial tea, he 
said that he should be cross ; and spending several hours a day 
out of doors in our dry atmosphere, he told me, had cured him 
of rheumatism, with which he suffered in the damper European 
climate. After dinner, at Joseph's, sometimes he read aloud 
from some dramatic author, or there was a game of cards, but 
more generally of billiards. Of the long summer evenings a 
drive through his grounds, sometimes a walk to the Belvidere 
on the Delaware. After dinner, and an hour or so in the 
drawing-room, the Emperor usually received his librarian with 



BONAPARTE. 147 

specimens of new books, of which he chose two or three to look 
over, throwing the rest on the floor, and sometimes into the 
fire-place, if he did not like them. When travelling, or in 
campaign, he took a portable library with him, composed of 
boxes in compartments, containing miniature editions of select 
works in history, belles lettres, and science. Not finding all 
that he wanted, he sketched, while at the castle of Marrac, on 
the border of Spain, before he returned from that country in 
1808, and at Schoenbrun, near Vienna, in 1809, the outline of a 
travelling library, which he intended to take with him when- 
ever he left home. The Emperor sometimes worked the whole 
evening. At ten o'clock he gave his orders for the next day, 
and retii-ed for the night. When there was any pressing busi- 
ness he got up at one or two o'clock at night and had his sec- 
retary called. Every week he went hare-hunting or partridge- 
shooting, not so much from fondness for the sport as for 
exercise. Towards the latter part of his reign there were stag 
hunts of the imperial court, in wliich he took part ; but rather, 
probably, because it was deemed royal amusement than from 
much enjoyment of it. He seldom went to the theatre, but 
often had plays performed at the various palaces which he in- 
habited, much according to the royal routine established before 
the revolution. The imperial household expenses were regulated 
with the same close attention as those of the Empire ; and the 
domestic budget settled every year, when the Emperor himself 
presided at the family council, and scrupulously reviewed every 
item. Without rec^uiring parsimony, he reproved Avaste and negli- 
gence, and insisted on economy ; in all of which he was seconded 
by Duroc, who superintended the minutest details. The piiblic 
treasury furnished twenty-five millions of francs ($5,000,000) 
a year for the imperial civil list, which the crown demesnes in- 
creased to thirty or thirty-one millions of francs, (about 
$6,000,000). Building and furnishing were the two heaviest 
charges : building cost about three millions of francs ($600,000) 
a year ; furnishing, about one million eight hundred thousand 
francs ($o60,000); the mihtary household, eight hundred thou- 
sand francs ($160,000) ; ladies of the palace, chamberlains, libra- 
ries, playing-cards, clerks, messengers, a,nd wages, nearly twelve 



148 BONAPARTE. 

hundred thousand francs ($240,000). Music for the chapel, 
the ajjartments, and the theatres, cost near nine hundred thou- 
sand francs, (say $180,000) ; the Emperor's toilet twenty 
thousand francs, ($4000) ; that of the Empress, with her strong- 
box, six hundred thousand francs, ($120,000). From the whole 
civil list the Emperor, by economy and good order, saved thir- 
teen or fourteen millions of francs a year, ($2,600,000 and 
more); so that, after maintaining as magnificent a court as 
any in Europe, he laid up one hundred millions of francs, 
($20,000,000,) part of which, accumulated in gold in the cellar of 
the Tuilleries, was the remnant and one of the first spoils seized 
upon by the Bourbon monarchs as soon as they returned, poor, 
rapacious, and as shamelessly regardless of the rights, comforts, 
and property of the Bonapartes as the Emperor Napoleon had 
been magnanimously careful and generous respecting theirs. 

Probably of no one that ever lived have so many likenesses 
been taken as of Napoleon, on canvass, in marble, ivory, and on 
other substances ; which generally bear some resemblance of 
feature and form ; but it was extremely difiicult to portray or 
delineate Napoleon's look. Its mobility was beyond the reach 
of imitation ; corresponding with the rapidity of his ideas ; like 
lightning starting from his grey and searching eyes, as if with 
a distinct glance for every thought. His prominent skull, 
superb high forehead, long, pallid, thoughtful face, might be 
depicted; but not his characteristic aspect. His arms hung 
well from his shoulders; his legs were well formed; thighs 
round ; his hands and feet small and handsome, with plump, 
tapering fingers, of which he occasionally seemed a little vain. 
His nose was aquiline, straight, and well placed ; teeth good, 
though during his unwholesome confinement at St. Helena, as 
was also the case with his brother's near Philadelphia, the gums 
required frequent bleeding. The curve of Napoleon's lip was 
finely marked, and his chin slightly prominent. Without color 
in his face, which was quite pallid, his skin was perfectly clear. 
His head was large, and neck rather short. With a graceful 
sweep of the whole visage, regularity of features, and fullness 
of shoulders, his bust was altogether noble, and his step digni- 
fied. His common look was calm ; when I saw him, mild if 



BONAPARTE. 149 

not meek, -without tlio slightest sign of fierceness or severity. 
His smile was singularly gracious and engaging, and when he 
studied to please, no man could be more captivating. His 
natural ascendant was such, that before he became a monarch 
or consul, persons conversing with him felt and acknowledged 
his superiority by circling round and yielding him the word, as 
is usual with subjects to princes. When excited his nostrils 
dilated, there was a movement of the forehead between his 
eyebrows, and his tone became extremely authoritative. Ac- 
customed too, as he was, to military command from an early 
age, his language was at times abrupt and overbearing. But 
the longer he lived, the calmer he grew ; and he was very lively, 
with a loud and bantering laugh, when relaxed to good humour. 
As his capacity for labor was extraordinary, so his perform- 
ances, physical and mental, were immense ; his diligence, vigils, 
and exploits in civil as well as military transactions. At school 
he was more industrious and distinguished than most other boys ; 
although of his boyhood he said himself that there was nothing 
remarkable, except inquisitiveness and obstinacy. But that 
does not do him justice. Modest, studious, dutiful, affectionate, 
yet lively, sometimes petulant and teasing; his authority over 
men never became more absolute than that of his mother was over 
him in childhood. His great-uncle, the arch-deacon of Ajaccio, 
who became head of the family when Napoleon's father died, 
had likewise great influence over Napoleon, who was always 
his fond and reverential nephew. At ten years of age put to 
school in France, though he first bore arms as a soldier re- 
sisting the English in Corsica, yet his habits, youthful im- 
pressions, and patriotic attachments Avcre entirely French. 
Distinguished at his examination, it was in mathematics that he 
particularly excelled. Quiet, polite, grateful, tolerable in his- 
tory and geography, feeble in Latin and the elegant accom- 
plishments, were the merits certified by his superior when Na- 
poleon left the military academy. Lieutenant and Captain 
Bonaparte was one of the most exemplary young men of his 
time : not addicted to any of the usual vices or follies of 3'oung 
ofiBcers ; no gambling, quarrelling, duelling, or dissipation of 
any kind discredited his first years in the army. His morals 



150 BOXAPARTE. 

were as pure as his talents were superior and liis temper amiable. 
That such undeniable youth should ripen to the wicked ma- 
turity so profusely imputed to him, seems contrary to nature. 
At school, he was a favorite with his school-fellows, and in their 
choice of boys to preside at sports, or on other occasions. Na- 
poleon was mostly elected. In the army, he was as generally 
esteemed. His popularity, as commander, with the soldiers is 
well known ; his uniform and cordial kindness, attention to 
their wants and comforts, and studying their welfare more than 
that of officers. Yet at school, and in all military grades, he was 
a strict disciplinarian, never courted favor by unworthy or un- 
manly condescension ; but, throughout his whole life, was autho- 
ritative, direct, simple, systematic, kind and considerate. Jo- 
seph, at college, excelled in belles lettres as Napoleon did in the 
mathematics. From the time the latter entered the army, as 
second lieutenant, to the last moments of his busy life, his con- 
tributions to literature, by various treatises, histories, letters, 
proclamations, down to newspaper paragraphs, fill volumes from 
his pen. Yet he almost lost the poAver of handwriting — of 
writing and spelling correctly, he became quite incapable. Not 
only were his written words illegible, but ill-spelt, and his sen- 
tences incomplete, from want of words. In his ordinary writing, 
half the words wanted their proper letters, and many of his 
sentences wanted indispensable words. When about to marry 
the Austrian princess, and a letter, in his own hand-writing, to 
the Emperor of Austria, was the necessary ceremonial, it would 
have been impossible for his future father-in-law to read Napo- 
leon's letter, if it had not been corrected by altering many 
letters, and adding several words. So, too, notwithstanding 
his knowledge of mathematics, and capability of severe, close 
study, his arithmetic was or became so faulty, that he could 
not add up accurately the smallest sum, and his errors always 
tended to increase the total beyond the reality. He would mis- 
take and magnify the simplest column in addition. He never 
sat still, but walked about as he dictated ; and then, in a sort 
of nervous emotion, it was his habit, with a twist or jerk of the 
arm, to twitch at his coat-sleeve. Nor could he bear interrup- 
tion, repetition or delay, but his amanuensis must write as 



BONAPARTE. 151 

rapidl}" as the dictator spoke ; whose respite "was not to leave 
off dictating, but merely change the subject and the scribe ; 
and he would keep several at Avork, all at once, on different 
topics. 

In much of this minute detail of an extraordinary man, the 
least observing may perceive Napoleon's resemblance to thou- 
sands of other men in no way remarkable. Still, his talent 
for labor, and appreciation of time, were uncommon ; for no 
one valued it more, or employed it more assiduously. At 
school and college, in garrison or camp, the cabinet, every- 
where, even in the bath, he was never idle, but always studying 
to advance the renown by which he filled the world. News- 
papers and pamphlets were read to him Avhile bathing. Ex- 
ploit was constantly either his enjoyment or his study. Though 
his regular life and temperate diet rendered him a good sleeper, 
and during the earlier stages of his consular and imperial 
career, he usually slept soundly seven hours of the twenty- 
four, yet rest was not his recreation, but he took it as he did 
food and exercise, not as an enjoyment, but to enable him to 
renew labor. Feasting was not his entertainment, and slumber 
only relaxation ; so that when fifty years of age, he had done 
more than the work of a long life, not only in arms, but in 
literature and legislation. Nearly six hundred unpublished 
and most confidential letters, to his brother Joseph, written Avith 
heart in hand, calculated to throw the truest light on Napoleon's 
real character, sentiments and purposes, and dispel clouds of 
prejudices, wdth difficulty concealed by Joseph in Europe, and 
brought to this country for safe keeping, were, after his death, 
by my instrumentality, deposited in the United States Mint at 
Philadelphia, as a place of secmuty ; and after four years' safe 
keeping there, on the 23d of October, 1849, in my presence, 
surrendered by Joseph's testamentary executor to his grandson 
Joseph, then tAventy-five years of age, according to his grand- 
father's will ; which bequeaths to that grandson those precious 
developments, together with other unpublished manuscripts ; 
among them part of Joseph's life, dictated by himself, and the 
republican IMarshal Jourdan's Memoirs, written by himself. 
These perfectly unreserved and brotherly confidential letters, 



152 BONAPARTE. 

several liundrecl in Napoleon's own handwriting, written before 
he became great, will demonstrate his real sentiments and cha- 
racter, when too young for dissembling, and quite unreserved 
with his correspondent. Joseph relied upon them to prove 
what he always said, and often told me, that Napoleon was a 
man of warm attachments, tender feelings, and honest purposes. 
Napoleon had some ear for music, and could turn a tune : 
Meneval gives the chorus of a love-ditty which he often sang. 
But he w^as not as fond of poetry, which he sometimes called 
liolloiv science, as if one of the exact sciences. He held medi- 
cine in disesteem, and often joked Corvisant on its imperfections. 
History, politics, tactics, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, 
and his own, but by no means modern, notions of political eco- 
nomy, he preferred to poetical, dramatic, or romantic literature. 
And while he liked the conversation of Talma and others of 
that sort, yet Monge, Cuvier, Haiiy, Berthollet, Laplace, and 
those called philosophers, were his especial favorites ; — science 
rather than literature. He was not fond of cards, chess, or 
any other game, at none of which he excelled ; but at his 
evening parties, preferred Avalking about, and chatting with 
various persons, in which he shone to great advantage. By 
saying that if Corneille lived in his reign, he would have made 
him a minister and a prince, he did not so much refer to 
poetical as philosophical superiority, Corneille's profound 
knowledge of men, government, and human nature. As a 
young man, however. Napoleon had thoroughly read and was 
charmed with Rousseau, Avhose bold originality captivated most 
of the young of his time. When a youth. Napoleon wrote a 
history of Corsica, to which land of his nativity he was 
warmly attached ; and Raynal, when there could be no motive 
for flattery, recommended the work to Mirabeau. Young 
Bonaparte's Supper at Beaucaire is extant ; and his Essay on 
the Art of Happiness was saved by Talleyrand's adulation 
from Napoleon's attempt to destroy it, as unworthy of preser- 
vation. If Napoleon had not distinguished himself as a sol- 
dier, he would have done so as an author, poet, orator, or 
mathematician; somehow or other : for he was potent with both 
tongue and pen, as well as sword. His conversation was 



BONAPARTE. 153 

highly instructive, and ho was one of the most eloquent men 
of modern times. His orders of the day, proclamations, bul- 
letins, speeches, addresses, and answers to addresses, all his 
Avritings, from his first appearance in Italy to his last will and 
testament at St. Helena, many of his sudden sayings, his 
maxims, sarcasms, witticisms, and unpremeditated observations, 
breathe an abrupt, vivifying, concentrated and peculiar spirit, 
poetical and imaginative, logical and argumentative, fervid and 
forcible. Like most of the French republicans or revolu- 
tionists, he was much addicted to Roman and Grecian illustra- 
tions and allusions. Ossian was a favorite book with him. 
He named Bernadotte's son, the present king of Sweden, to 
whom he stood god-father, Oscar ; and his sister Pauline Le- 
clerc's son, Dermide. Beranger, the first of modern French 
lyrical poets, an inflexible Bonapartist, says that Napoleon was 
a great poet. Talma considered him a great dramatist. Ma- 
dame Catalani did not like and would not sing for him. But 
most of the great actors, singers, poets, and men of letters, 
admired the Emperor, whom they never failed to find a muni- 
ficent protector. 

His judgment and learning, common sense and shrewdness, 
were not led astray, however, or obscured by imagination. 
His master mind was displayed to the greatest advantage in 
the science of civil government, by the laborious discussion, 
enactment and promulgation of a code of laws, called some- 
times the Napoleon, at others the Civil Code. At every 
meeting of the ablest jurisconsults and publicists convened for 
that purpose, he never failed to attend, to take an earnest and 
active part, being the chief suggestor and constant debater of 
every proposition ; tolerating, inviting and encouraging the 
utmost freedom of debate, and listening Avith candor to every 
argument. Napoleon was a free talker, never wrapt up in 
mysterious taciturnity, or disclosed by oracular intimations. 
Yet he Avas a listener, too, which is a rare talent, and could 
keep his decision suspended till he heard all that might be said 
on all sides. Deliberations on the code lasted, mostly, five or 
six hours a-day, which is longer than an American judicial, 
much longer than a legislati\'e daily session. Not only would 



154 BONAPARTE. 

tlie Emperor, all that time, take his part in the council, but 
often keep some of the counsellors to dine with him, during and 
after dinner renewing the subject, and analysing it in every 
way. In those grave, sometimes technical and complicated 
questions, the astonishing versatility of his genius, and extent 
of his attainments for civil as well as military government, the 
quickness and clearness, with which he saw and seized the vei'y 
point in question, in matters he had not been educated to, and 
might well have been uninformed of, his superior knowledge 
of men and things, were wonderfully apparent. If the suppres- 
sion of Napoleon's despotism was beneficial or necessary for man- 
kind, still many lasting monuments of his liberal reforms and 
wise improvements remain in laws, institutions and territorial 
changes. Compared with any legitimate monarch, and most of 
their ministers, the advantage of such a ruler is obvious, to 
found or renew a state, over those nearly always ruling with- 
out practical education and common information, if born to 
command. Not only is Napoleon's superior intelligence, dili- 
gence, and providence striking when compared Avith Louis 
XVIII., Charles X., or even Louis Philippe, but his aptitude 
for imbibing information from those about him, surpassed 
theirs. The great in every station, royal, noble, and official, 
from that alembic distil much of their knowledge. But in- 
structed by conversation without reading, they get the essence 
of learning only when they relish it more than frivolous or sen- 
sual amusements. It was, hoAvever, not in the council-chamber 
that the Emperor's chief excellence appeared ; but in the field, 
to which he was educated and excited by perhaps excessive 
thirst for military glory and intoxicating success. He often 
told his brother Joseph how great a mistake it was to ascribe 
the beginning of his elevation to the siege of Toulon, where his 
military superiority was first acknowledged. "Not at all," 
said he, " no such thing. Marmont or any other brave artillery 
officer would have done as well as I did at Toulon, where the 
stupid commander did not even understand the common range 
of cannon-shot. My career and elevation began at the church 
of St. Roque, in the battle of the Sections, to which Barras 
appointed me. There I began to command, and thencefor- 



BONAPARTE. 155 

ward went upwards," True, but tliat first of the victories 
won by him, in October 17*J5, was over his own countrymen, 
and by considerable bloodshed. His elevation, four years 
afterwards, to chief-magistracy was also, at least, not without 
military coercion, though bloodless : inaugurations of his 
greatness, therefore, ominous of its catastrophe ; eifected 
by the sword, which unmade as it made him. General 
Bernard described to me Napoleon at Waterloo with French 
enthusiastic admiration of his amazing self-possession and 
cheerfulness, superhuman composure and resource in the 
crisis of the fatal moment when apprised of the second and 
final overwhelming irruption of the Prussians under Blucher. 
"He was," said Bernard, "a god in battle." Unlike Blucher 
and many other successful great warriors, but like his great 
English conqueror at that battle, Napoleon's courage was 
always united with great discretion. Not so cold as "Welling- 
ton's, Napoleon's discretion was never-failing. One of King 
Joseph's family, present at the battle of Vittoria, told me that 
but for Wellington's extreme circumspection there, the total 
destruction of Joseph's force under Marshal Jourdan was in- 
evitable. All Napoleon's battles were planned with the utmost 
forecast and provision against every contingency, and fought 
with great fertility of resource in emergencies. But when all 
that prudence could devise was done, he cahnly left the result 
to circumstances, or what may be called fortune, which was a 
reason why he was called a fatalist ; for he never relied on any 
individual, or undertook himself, to overcome events. All he 
could do, he said, was to make the most of them. Joseph more 
than once told me that he perceived in this country more vene- 
ration for individual opinion than elsewhere. " That was not 
the Emperor's Avay," he said; "he cared little for any one 
man's opinion ; but governed himself by that of a mass of men 
and course of events, never undertaking to make events, or 
being governed by any but his own judgment." He was a 
professed time-server, and believer in masses. 

Yet in his selection of oflGcial instruments he was highly judi- 
cious and fortunate ; preferring men of business to courtiers or 
flatterers. For many years, aifectionate, amiable, and inclined 



156 BONAPARTE. 

to gratify others : till lie was circumvented and misled by wives, 
sisters, and nobles, led into temptation and spoiled by fortune, 
liis instruments were remarkable for tlieir adaptation to their 
respective places and uses ; — such as Massena, whom he consi- 
dered the very first military man, Murat, Lannes, Berthier, 
none of them men of talents except for the particular purpose 
to which their master applied them. When Joseph remonstrated 
with Napoleon against the plundering or other misconduct of 
some of his generals in Spain, which the Emperor detested as 
much as Joseph, he declined nevertheless to censure them ; 
"for," said he, "in their line they are inestimable. How can 
I condemn Massena, who in battle is as good as I am ?" When- 
ever a man had a genius for any thing. Napoleon developed 
and encouraged that peculiar talent. 

His own probity was as strict and infallible as his ambition 
was inordinate, if not unscrupulous. Of the twin predominating 
passions of mankind, avarice and ambition, in him ambition 
seemed to absorb avarice entirely. In all matters of property 
there was no juster or more exemplary person, economical, yet 
generous but exact in all expenditures ; his living as a poor 
soldier, his household as a great Emperor, his government, 
all his expenses, private and public, regulated by the wisest 
and most admirable economy, — not parsimony, but economy in 
its best acceptation. After having had the spoils of Italy and 
Egypt at his command, with large military chests from a weak 
and revolutionary government, Paris crowded with the rich 
trophies of his conquests, many of his officers enriched by their 
plunder, and even his commissaries by speculations on the 
public treasure, the young commander-in-chief returned home 
not much richer than he left it. When boundless wealth was in 
his lap, and he gave it away to all around him with splendid 
profusion, not only was his own establishment, and especially 
his personal part of it, moderate, but his face was set with 
severe indignation against all plunderers, speculators, maraud- 
ers, and pilferers. Collated with the eight hundred thousand 
sterling of British debt, half of it created to put him down, it 
is one of the miracles of Napoleon, that he waged all his enor- 
mous wars without contracting a debt or borrowing a cent, 



BONAPARTE. 157 

witliout discounting a note or using one not forth-n-itli convert- 
ible into coin ; and Avhen expelled from the throne, left in the 
cellars of his palace a large sum, many millions in cash econo- 
mised from family show for public service. The imperial budget 
of France, when he ruled fifty millions of subjects, was little 
more than half of the royal budget when Louis Philippe reigned 
over thirty-four millions. The standard of probity was as 
much higher in Napoleon's time. Some years of peace were 
purchased by Louis XVIII. and Charles X. contracting debts 
to pay foreign governments for conquering, and their troops 
for occupying France, and to reimburse restored nobles for 
their estates confiscated, because they deserted and made war 
on their country. Those debts are the crushing inheritance 
and greatest difficulty of republicanised France, which Napo- 
leon left at least partly free and altogether clear of debt. Al- 
though it may be said that he supported France by the con- 
quests which England, by successive coalitions, forced him to 
make ; yet the abundance, regularity, and management of the 
national income and expenditures in his time, without an idea 
of what is now recognised as the science of political economy, 
without paper-money and without debt, is a monument as 
amazing as his code of laws. 

Napoleon's morals were exemplary. At school a dutiful, 
good boy ; in early manhood a studious, modest, unobtrusive 
youth, excellent son, brother, friend, stranger to excesses and 
irregularities, and little given to what are ardently pursued by 
most young men as the pleasures of the world. When he re- 
turned to France, thirty years of age, to be raised to the head of 
the government by nearly universal acclaim, contrary to common 
English traduction and American belief, he may be said to have 
scarcely ever been guilty of an immoral action. His promotion 
to chief-magistracy was followed by acts of substantial and 
generous kindness to all who had the least right to his remem- 
brance. I have heard Joseph very often say that Napoleon 
was kind, comiDassionate, and tender-hearted ; and that Joseph 
used to tell him, " You take more pains to seem severe and 
rough than most men do to appear amiable and kind." 
Although authority and sycophancy constrained the Emperor 



158 BONAPARTE. 

to assume unbending and repulsive manners, yet rarely was 
appeal in vain to his generosity as general, consul, or emperor. 
Compared with the sanguinary reigns of the restored Bourbons, 
and with their treatment of him, his deportment to all, in- 
cluding them, is radiant with benignity ; though the Bourbons 
have been registered, by flattering history, as mild monarchs, 
however weak. Placable and forgiving. Napoleon was never 
cruel. He detested quarrels and duels, avoided when liable to 
them, strongly discountenanced and punished when above them. 
Constant kindness to his soldiers was one of his principal holds 
on their never-failing affection. His generosity to the van- 
quished was equally signal ; to Mack, after his surrender of 
Ulm ; to Melas, after his defeat at Marengo ; and to the Em- 
perors of Austria and Russia, after their overthrow, and Alex- 
ander's prevarication at Austerlitz. His pardon of the Prus- 
sian prince of Hatzfeld is one of the noblest instances history 
records of magnanimous forgiveness. Nor was Napoleon 
subject to the degrading infirmity of envy. He deeply de- 
plored Kleber's death, though his personal enemy ; cordially 
rejoiced in Moreau's victory of Hohenlinden, though his 
greatest rival; and, on the field of Wagram, signalized his 
reconciliation with Macdonald, another eminent opponent. 
Bernadotte, always his antagonist. Napoleon treated with con- 
stant kindness — partly, it is true, through Joseph's interven- 
tion. As soon as he was established in the Consulate, he made 
provision for his former humble friends, the housekeeper and 
her husband, where he was at school, by transporting them to 
his own residence ; and got his most intimate schoolmate 
recalled from exile to be appointed his private secretary; 
Fauvelet, who, after living several years in his family, and being 
discharged for fraudulent misconduct, though without harsh- 
ness, sold himself to the royalists, helped them to calumnies pub- 
lished in his name, not even written by him, against his bene- 
factor, as Memoirs of Bourrienne. Monstrous ambition, and 
tremendous downfal, have given color to the vast detraction to 
which Napoleon was subjected. And it will be some time before 
the truth can be gradually established. But it has been in 
continual progress of emancipation since his fall ; and posterity 



BONAPARTE. 159 

will recognize him, not only as a great, but likewise, in many- 
respects, a good man, excelling in private and domestic virtues. 
Napoleon's morals were not only exemplary, but singular, com- 
pared with contemporary monarchs like Charles X. of France, 
Charles IV. of Spain, and George IV. of England, depraved 
and dissolute men, more odious and despicable when compared 
with him as individuals than as monarchs. Even the most 
benevolent and brilliant of the monarchs of his age, the Em- 
peror Alexander, was a man of much less domestic virtue, or 
personal decorum, than Napoleon, and quite as rapacious of 
extensive empire. Marshal Grouchy told me that, at Tilsit, 
the Emperor Alexander honored him, one day, with a long 
interview and free conversation ; in the course of which the 
Emperor said that people must not insist on the same standard 
of morality for monarchs as for other men, which his imperial 
majesty pronounced impracticable. Napoleon, apart from 
rabid ambition, was a model of domestic, particularly matri- 
monial virtues, far exceeding most of not only the royalty, but 
the aristocracy of Europe. The most pertinacious and effectual 
French authors of his overthrow were Talleyrand, Fouche, 
Madame de Stael, and La Fayette. Compared with either 
Talleyrand or Fouche, the purity of Napoleon's character, 
public or private, will hardly be denied. He was a much 
chaster man than Madame de Stael was a woman. She and 
La Fayette were indebted to him for kindnesses such as could 
hardly be compensated. Nor were all the evils of his unde- 
niable despotism so injurious to France as the Bourbon resto- 
ration, of which La Fayette and De Stael were chief contrivers. 
Accepted, as George IV. and Charles X. were by England 
and France, as respectively the first gentlemen of those king- 
doms, Napoleon, in all the fascinations of manners, politeness, 
and study to please, was much more of a gentleman than either 
of them. Louis Philippe's father, the Duke of Orleans, Charles 
X., when Count of Artois, and George IV., as Prince of Wales, 
contemporaries, were, together, three of the most dissolute young 
men, not long before Lieutenant, and for several years Captain, 
then Major Bonaparte, not remarkable, because unknown, was 
constant in virtuous and irreproachable deportment. JMadame 



160 BONAPARTE. 

de Stael sneers at his want of higli-bred pollsli. But his su- 
perior wit she never forgave. Few individuals, probably no 
one, had more influence in undermining and discrediting the 
Empire of Napoleon than a woman Avho made love to him, and 
then took vengeance because he treated her courtship not only 
repulsively, but contemptuously. When he returned from Egypt, 
there were but two females who had any power over the young 
conqueror of thirty. They were his wife and his mother. 
General Bonaparte was a chaste, faithful, fond husband and son, 
on whom all the feminine attractions and temptations of Paris 
were thrown away : — dressed simply, lived domestically, and 
unostentatiously avoiding all female connexions beyond his own 
family. The celebrated Neckar's highly accomplished daughter, 
French wife of the Swedish ambassador, Madame de Stael, ex- 
tremely ugly, witty, fashionable and free, with amazing talents 
and unbridled love of display, of distinction, of money, and of 
men, went to work to subdue Bonaparte as soon as he returned 
from Egypt to Paris, immense in heroic renown, and innocent 
of all love but for his family. Whenever Madame de Stael 
fell in with him, in public or private, she spared no expenditure 
of language, looks, airs, graces, and enticements, to fascinate 
his intimacy, brilliant as she was in conversation on almost 
any subject. She kept up, also, a continual fire of notes to 
jMadame Bonaparte, who would hand them to her husband, 
and say, " Here, my friend, is a billetdoux, addressed to me, 
but intended for you." At length, at a party of Talleyrand's, 
Madame de Stael made her most desperate onset, which Bona- 
parte repelled and defeated, after the sharpest encounter of 
both their masterly wits. Publicly rejected, she vowed ven- 
geance. Her violent retaliation induced him afterwards, un- 
wisely and unfortunately, to banish her from Paris to Switzer- 
land, where, for more than ten years of solitary exile, she brooded 
and matured the revenge, to which few persons, not all the 
French royalists combined, contributed more acrimonious dis- 
paragement. His sarcastic wit made many more bitter enemies 
than that formidable woman. To lie like a bulletin, was common 
English and American mention of his military despatches. Most 
such documents misrepresent ; but his not more than others. 



BONAPARTE. ICl 

Nor was the falselioocl imputed to them so detrimental to him 
as the contumelious tone in which they often dealt with the 
contemptible monarchs, princes and nobles, whom, not content 
with vanquishing, he sometimes ridiculed ; who, though they 
must submit to his victories, could not bear his sarcasms. If 
I am not mistaken, Madame de Stael, when he returned from 
Elba, and allowed her claim on the Bourbon government for 
money, espoused his cause, and prevailed on her Swiss com- 
patriot, Benjamin Constant, to join him. 

Among the innumerable calumnies spent on Bonaparte, it 
was said, and long believed by many, that he had no religion. 
Scott, and other writers of his life, published, as a fact, that 
he embraced Islamism, which was a mere fabrication. He did 
no more in Egypt than respectfully attend at the religious 
exercises of the Mussulmans, which gratified them, and tran- 
quillized the country, whose creed it was as much his duty as 
his policy to tolerate, as is done by all conquerors in countries 
they subdue. Although not what can be called devout, Bona- 
parte was a sincere Roman Catholic ; as every one, he said, 
ought to be of his father's religion, and considered religion 
indispensable to good government. In the beginning of the 
French Revolution, most of its supporters were careless of 
religious observances, and inimical to clerical rule. Deism was 
a common part of republicanism when it began in France. 

I Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and other modern reformers, 
inculcated, not only emancipation from the authority of priests, 
but treated much of the creed of Christianity Avith contempt 
and ridicule ; and ridicule is heavier condemnation in France 

j than elsewhere. Bonaparte's marriage with Josephine was by 
! merely civil contract, without any religious sanction. La 
; Fayette, and many other respectable republicans, could hardly 
be deemed Christians ; nor Franklin or Jefferson, though per- 
' haps not mere theists, like Paine. Stephen Girard's interdict 
• of all clergymen, by his will, from the seminary he founded for 
\ children, interdicted not only from its government, but precincts, 
I came of that same French aversion to priestcraft, which con- 
demned it as part of royal and aristocratical abuses. Leading 

I I free-thinkers, from aversion to fanaticism, went over to infidelity.. 
1 1 Vol. IIL— 11 



162 BONAPARTE. 

Bonaparte, a Roman Catholic and a royalist, was liberal in his 
religion as in his politics. He would have had the priests 
married, convents and monasteries abolished, the pope stripped 
of temporal, but sustained by increased ecclesiastical power. 
He was, in 1800, what large numbers of pious persons, with 
the Pope, Pius IX., at their head, were in 1849 of opinion that 
religion does not suffer by toleration greater than it has ever en- 
joyed in most countries of Christendom. He would have sepa- 
rated church from state, but without destroying the church ; or, 
as he believed, and we Americans think, has been shown in this 
country, without diminishing its power or usefulness. In fact, 
to some considerable extent. Napoleon was a protestant, as 
many of the leading men of France, in his time, were modern 
Jansenists. Still he was penetrated with the importance of 
religion, reverently convinced of the existence and providence 
of God ; and in that belief, not only religious, but of the Ro- 
man Catholic religion. The great body of the French people 
being inflexible Roman Catholics, he could not inculcate any 
change so obnoxious as protestantism, without distracting the 
country. All he could do, was to favor liberality and establish 
toleration. He therefore restored, but reformed catholicity ', 
separating, as far as was prudent, spiritual from temporal, 
and healing the angry divisions which the republic left in the 
church. That great result, with its powerful tendency to Eu- 
ropean peace, quelling religious discord, the cause of so much 
calamity, it was one of the first acts of his government suc- 
cessfully to bring about. But Italy, almost a French province, 
and Spain, a neighbouring, close ally, were entirely Roman 
Catholic, like the large majority of France. The concordat 
arranged with the Pope was, therefore, all that was peaceably 
practicable ; and even to that many of the military were op- 
posed, and the republicans. Idealogues, as Bonaparte termed 
dissentients from his measures, comprising most of the repub- 
licans, condemned all accommodation with the Pope and the 
priesthood, as introducing foreign influence and power in a 
country in which tolerance and equality of worship were esta- 
blished. When religion is mixed with politics, the conse- 
quences are, we Americans think, pernicious. Boiiaparte did 



BONAPARTE. 163 

the best he coukl ; aiiil lils conduct proved pacifying and tran- 
quillizing. After his imperial downfall, protestants were falsely 
denounced and punished, by intolerant Roman Catholic adhe- 
rents of the royal restoration, as atheists; and republicans un- 
truly stigmatized as jacobins. La Fayette, and his small party 
of republicans inimical to Bonaparte, soon undeceived as to 
Bourbon government, began then to style themselves Liberals, 
and afterwards Independents, whom the royalists calumniated as 
opposed to all religion and authority. In fact, the difference of 
external religious observance is so great between different Chris- 
tian communities, that what, in parts of America, or Scotland, 
would be deemed impious, is common, in the manner of keeping 
Sunday, and many other things, in France. One of the first 
of the many English customs introduced in France by the 
Bourbons, on their restoration, was horse-racing on Sunday. 
A member of Congress who messed with me in 1814, seemed 
to have no public object so near his heart, considered none of 
his public duties so important, as prohibiting the transportation 
of the mail on Sundays. I read him a Paris newspaper ac- 
count of the attendance of the whole royal family, all extremely 
devout, at the first horse-race there, which took place on Sun- 
day. So of Napoleon's religion, persons of other countries and 
creeds are not impartial, and hardly competent, judges ; and 
when, like Walter Scott, they write history blinded by national 
superadded to religious prejudices, their accounts are entitled 
to no credit. Joseph Bonaparte was not a devout man ; many 
in this country would deem him irreligious, for there was no 
difference perceptible in his house between Sunday and Satur- 
day or Monday. All days were alike as to any religious cere- 
monies or observances, though as king of Naples and Spain he 
'' respected and kept all their religious ceremonies. But I have 
I heard him laugh at the noisy preaching at a neighboring con- 
! venticle in Jersey ; and he told me that Napoleon sometimes 
! joked at Louis Bonaparte's devoutness. In one of Napoleon's 
most anxious letters to Joseph in 1813, when Joseph's corres- 
pondence urged the Emperor to make peace. Napoleon's angry 
reply was, "You need not jjreach peace to me." Yet the}^ 
were both of the relisrion of their father, and much attached 



164 BONAPARTE. 

to their uncle, the last of the Corsican Bonapartes, the vene- 
rable and pious Archdeacon of Ajaccio. On Joseph's estate 
in New Jersey he had a portion set apart, and consecrated by 
religious ceremonies, for his burial-ground, in case he died in 
America ; and dying anywhere he would desire the consolation 
of religion. Napoleon was even charged with superstition, by 
some of those Avho, with as little reason, accused him of infi- 
delity. What was called superstition in him, was deep and 
aAvful assurance of God's mysterious omnipotence. At the oc- 
currence of remarkable incidents, either good or bad, he habi- 
tually often crossed himself. All his conversation, public 
harangues, papers, and other such manifestations, refer fre- 
quently to that power which controls human combinations 
and events. The ringing of church bells affected him with 
reverential solemnity. He asked for and took the sacraments 
of his church on his death-bed, and not as repentant of the 
infidelity or sins which his enemies most commonly imputed to 
him : but, surrounded as he was by cruel jailors, who watched 
to detect and expose any weakness, none such was caught or 
recorded. There is no reason to doubt that Napoleon lived 
and died a much sincerer believer of the Christian religion 
than many of those who calumniated him as an infidel and a 
Tm-k. Few men ever felt more deeply the influence of virtue 
in others. A virtuous person never failed to aAve him. When- 
ever confronted with what he called a virginal heart, it over- 
came all the stoicisms which his position required him to affect. 
He used to say that his religious reforms would never go be- 
yond the four propositions of Bossuet. Inborn sense of 
religious obligation was part of his nature. "All creeds," he 
said, " might be substantially good ; but no man should desert 
his father's." Religion, he uniformly insisted, is essential to 
morality. He could not comprehend how any one can be 
virtuous without religion. Irreligion he always reprobated. 
Two French tendencies of his time were extremely odious to 
him, duelling and contempt of religion. "That man," he said, 
" cannot be a good citizen who saps the foundation of rehgion : 
and there is no more hideous spectacle than an old man dying 
like a dog, with no hope of resurrection." I have heard 



BONAPARTE. 165 

from good authority, a royalist of Bourbon attachments, that 
the Emperor was sensible that he had not done enough for 
religion, and intended to do more. 

In the fatal and deplorable mistake of his second marriage, 
it was his respect for perhaps the worldly influence of religion 
that determined his selection of the Austrian princess, which 
was so great a cause of his ruin. A Russian or a Saxon princess, 
both of which were in his option, and contemplated, involved 
the dangerous attempt of establishing on the French throne a 
monarch's consort not of the Roman Catholic religion ; which 
Joseph Bonaparte always and often mentioned as the chief 
reason for choosing the Austrian princess. Napoleon would 
not give umbrage to his Roman Catholic subjects, particularly 
the old nobility, nearly all of whom were of that faith, and to 
other entirely Roman Catholic countries, Italy, Spain, and 
others. Piety may have had less part in this consideration 
than policy. But apprehension that a wife of the Greek 
church, or the Lutheran, would be offensive to most of the 
Roman Catholic people of France, Italy, and Spain, decided, 
so Joseph said, Napoleon's choice of the Austrian Empress. 

When he coveted a crown, it was indispensable that it must 
be by popular consent, without divine right ; as when he restored 
the church it was reformed. But he never had, probably, so 
much republican conviction as to believe that a French republic 
could stand erect and powerful in the midst of surrounding 
monarchies. His enemies charge him with gross inconsistency 
in that respect. The probability is that he was always a mon- 
archist. When married to an Emperor's daughter, and his 
imperial father-in-law, to relieve his own apprehension of de- 
gradation, said to Napoleon, " The Bonapartes have been 
sovereigns, I know, for I have had their titles examined," 
Napoleon smiled, and replied that he would rather be the Ro- 
dolph of Hapsburg of his family, than born to Empire. And 
when, during the Consulate, obviously striving for a crown, 
sycophants hunted up a pedigree for him, he seemed to treat 
the design with contempt, saying that his nobility dated from 
the victory of Montcnottc. Still he was proud of his noble 
descent, and felt that his was hlue blood, as the Italians call 



166 BONAPARTE. 

that of tlieir nobility. His parents, both father and mother, 
were of that caste ; and when his father, impoverished by 
Corsican troubles, applied for permission to get Joseph and 
Napoleon educated at royal expense in France, he made the 
required proof by adequate testimonials of his nobility. The 
Bonaparte family were of the old Italian nobility, princes of 
Treviso, allied to some of the noblest families, distinguished 
in arms, in literature, and the church. When, expelled from 
Italy, they took refuge in Corsica, their family alliances there 
were also noble. They were likewise of the Ghibelline party, 
opposed to the Guelphs. Napoleon's blood was, therefore, 
always inimical to the royal house of Hanover, by whose 
English ministers he was overcome and his family cast down 
from the thrones on which he seated them. Son of a Cor- 
sican noble, the Emperor was educated in France by royal 
bounty. His earliest impressions were, therefore, entirely 
aristocratic; and next to filial affection he must have felt 
grateful reverence for his royal benefactors. His aversion to 
those French revolutionists who condemned their king to death 
was constant and irreconcilable. Joseph often told me that the 
Emperor's opinion was that the conventionalists were incom- 
petent judges, and had no right to sit in judgment on their king. 
When about to invest the first savings of his military pay in 
the purchase of real estate, his orders to his agent were not to 
risk the sum in national domain, as confiscated property was 
called. He said at St. Helena, that he was of a noble family 
fallen into obscurity. Those who voted the king's execution, 
he called assassins. The property of princes and nobles con- 
fiscated for emigration, he considered held illegally. He often 
said, jestingly, to Cambaceres, " if the Bourbons retm-n I shall 
escape, but you will be hanged." When he married Josephine, 
her social superiority and noble connexions were objects 
with him. Not only was her social position so much better 
than his as to render her hand advancement for him, but she 
had some fortune, while, except his pay, he had nothing at 
all. It is a fact, therefore, which has been paraded and mis- 
represented by many of his biographers, that a few days before 
their marriage, one morning when she was abed in her chamber, 



BONAPARTE. 167 

■with her future husband and several other persons in the room, 
Raguideau, the notary she had employed to draw the marriage 
articles, coming in, they all left the room except the future 
husband, who withdrew to the window, while the notary placed 
himself at her bedside. After despatching their business, Ma- 
dame Beauharnais asked her notary what was generally said 
of her second marriage. Raguideau honestly answered that it 
was not well thought of, to marry a man several years younger 
than herself, a mere soldier without fortune, nothing in the 
world but his sword and regimentals, whom she would have to 
support, who might be killed in any battle and leave her with 
an increased family to maintain. The widow then enquired 
of her notary what was his own opinion ; who replied, that he 
thought with her fortune she might make a better match. " Your 
oiScer," said he, "I dare say is a worthy man, but he has 
nothing." She then called Bonaparte from the window, where 
he stood drumming on the glass, and said to him, " General, 
did you hear what M. Raguideau said?" "Yes," said he; 
" he spoke like an honest man, and I like him for it. I hope 
he will continue in charge of our business, for he has gained 
my confidence." Ever after he treated Raguideau with respect, 
and promoted his interest ; but did not mention his objection 
to the marriage at his coronation, as several biographies relate. 
What he actually said on that great occasion, recurring to 
former days of insignificance and destitution, Avith a natural 
sentiment of aifectionate simplicity, contemplating the magni- 
ficent evidences of imperial grandeur surrounding his family 
present, was, "Joseph, if our father could but see us !" Me- 
neval, who heard him say so, a man of truth, entirely to be 
relied on, declares that family feeling, still warm in Napoleon's 
heart, had much more to do with that exclamation than in- 
toxication of glory, of rank, or of power. 

Joseph told me that Josephine constantly inclined her hus- 
band more and more to noble associations, to which, at last, his 
own preference proved one of his greatest weaknesses and mis- 
fortunes. The proof is sufficient to justify belief that Na- 
poleon, coinciding with the revolutionists in aversion to the 
Bom-bon royalty, yet deemed nobility and monarchy essential, 



168 BONAPARTE. 

like reformed religious establishments, to good French govern- 
ment : but monarchy without divine right, nobility without 
privilege, and the church perfectly tolerant of all sects, including 
Jews. 

An ingenious fable was suggested to render Bonaparte legi- 
timate monarch of France by successive and divine right, as 
lineally descended from Henry IV. and the other Bourbon 
kings. An accredited conjecture concerning the man in the 
iron mask, was that he was twin but elder brother of Louis 
XIY. The governor of the Isle of Saint Margaret, charged 
with the custody of that mysterious prisoner, named Bon- 
pard, was not uninformed of the claim of his charge to be 
king of France by better right than Louis XIV. Bonpard's 
daughter and the prisoner becoming attached to each other, the 
governor apprised the king of their attachment ; who believed 
that no detriment to him could result from letting his unfortu- 
nate brother console his solitude and misery by a harmless 
attachment. The man in the iron mask and Governor Bon- 
pard's daughter were therefore allowed to be married, as the 
inventor of the fable declared it would be easy to verify by the 
marriage register kept at Marseilles. The children of that 
marriage, always clandestinely born, were privately taken to 
Corsica for concealment, and there, it was added, to keep up 
the deception, took their mother's name of Bonpard, which in 
Corsica became Bonaparte. In this way Napoleon was made 
to descend lineally from Henry IV., and to be entitled to his 
throne. But the story was little attended to ; for even if true, 
the right was in Joseph. The Bonapartcs, never French, were 
a noble Italian family, for six centuries distinguished in arms, 
literature, and the church. For the last two hundred years 
preceding their translation to France, they inhabited Ajaccio. 
At Treviso and Bologna, during Napoleon's Italian campaigns, 
the family arms were exhibited to the victorious commander 
by persons of consideration, who thereby sought to win his 
regard ; and it is said that the armorial bearings were a rake 
and golden lilies, like the Bourbon arms. At Florence, an 
Abbe Gregory Bonaparte entertained Napoleon and all his 
staflF with costly hospitality, showed him the titles attesting the 



Bonaparte's mother. 169 

nobility of the Bonaparte family, and by his will left him a 
considerable fortune, which Napoleon presented to a public 
institution. The Corsican survivor of the family, Lucien Bona- 
parte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, died there in 1791. Napoleon's 
father died at Montpellier in 1787, leaving the care of his wife 
and children to Joseph, then seventeen years of age, and to 
their uncle, far advanced in years and bedridden with the gout. 
Joseph, with his father's last benediction, received his injunc- 
tion to relinquish the military profession, for which he was pre- 
paring in France, and return to Corsica, there to superintend 
the family concerns. From 1787 to 1791, when Archdeacon 
Bonaparte died, Joseph was the immediate head of the family. 
Napoleon, when a lieutenant in the regiment of La Fere, visited 
his uncle in Ajaccio, soothed his infirmities and dissolution by 
the tenderest attentions, wrote to Paris for medical advice how 
to treat his complaints while his uncle lived, and after his 
death always treated his memory with the utmost veneration. 

The stock was excellent from which Charles Bonaparte's 
eight adult survivors of thirteen children sprang. His wife, 
their mother, Lsetitia Ramolino, was of a noble Corsican family, 
not rich, but respectable, and employed in public services. All 
the children were born in their father's house, at the town of 
Ajaccio, except Joseph, who was born at their country resi- 
dence, near Corte, not far from Ajaccio. There, till lately, 
and probably yet, the family mansion stood, embowered in 
vines and olive-trees ; and a rocky grotto, hard by, to which 
Napoleon retired for his studies, when at home in vacations. 
A fruitful old vine, called JEsposata, grew there, of which the 
fallen Emperor, in his lo{|uacious recollections at St. Helena, 
spoke with grateful remembrance, as having, by sale of its 
fruit, defrayed the slender charges of some of his juvenile 
journeys to France. When chief magistrate, he made the 
vine a present to his Corsican nurse, whom he sent for to 
Paris ; and would have given her the whole estate, but that 
she, being unable to manage it, was therefore otherwise boun- 
tifully provided for. 

It has been published that Napoleon's mother, taken Avith 
the pains of child-birth in church, brought him forth in her 



170 Bonaparte's mother. 

parlor, before slie could reach lier cliamber. That story Jo- 
seph denied to me ; but added that his mother's frequently 
accompanying on horseback, when pregnant with the future 
Emperor, their father in his campaigns, might not have been 
without influence on the daring mobility of his career. She 
was a brave and ardent patriot, like many Italian women of 
noble birth, not highly educated ; not accomplished even in 
the usual feminine attractions of music and dancing ; but of 
sincere, cheerful, resolute, constant and masculine spirit, which 
fitted her to be a hero's mother, and undergo, with unshaken 
fortitude, the terrible vicissitudes of his prodigious rise and ter- 
rible fall. Within the same fifteen years she beheld her humble 
Corsican home burned, devastated and ruined several times ; 
French, Italian, Spanish, and German palaces filled with mon- 
archs of her own family, then driven from them in banishment, 
and scattered, with prices set on their heads, throughout Europe, 
America, and Africa. Still handsome, as she had been beauti- 
ful, after burying her husband before he was forty years of age, 
and five of their children in Corsica, she was obliged to remove 
to France, to live some time near Marseilles, in straitened cir- 
cumstances ; the talents of her three elder sons, and the charms 
of her daughters, their mother's main reliance. M. Thiers con- 
signs to history, that, at one time, she preferred Lucien to Na- 
poleon. At all times she sympathized with the humbled against 
the exalted ; warmly and loftily vindicating against an imperial 
son, another whom she deemed hardly dealt by ; loving Lucien 
when driven into exile, more tenderly than Napoleon who drove 
him there. Lucien and Louis abundantly proved that they did 
not desire thrones, and Joseph preferred elegant ease to royal 
commotion. When the Emperor forced him from the tranquil- 
lized and reformed kingdom of Naples, to undertake the con- 
vulsed Spanish monarchy, there to be thwarted by French mar- 
shals, and chid by their imperious master, Joseph remonstrated 
with passionate appeal, and the provoked Emperor said angrily 
to their mother, ^'■Your Joseph is not fit to be king of Spain," 
with offended motherly dignity, she retorted, "No; he should 
have taken holy orders, as was intended. Then, if become Pope, 
he would not have consecrated you Emperor, which would have 



bonapakte's mother. 171 

saved the rest of my sons a deal of trouble." lu a remote 
and primitive province like Corsica, where, Joseph told me, 
numbers of the people live on chestnuts, parental authority is 
revered, and filial obedience a sort of worship. Control of her 
sons, habitual from their infancy, though necessarily changed 
by time and circumstance, never degenerated into fearing or 
flattering the greatest of them. Joseph loved to say that she 
had been called the mother of the Gracchi. She was the fe- 
male of the family least dazzled by their immensity. Jose- 
phine, who censured her parsimony, was censured by her 
mother-in-law for wasteful extravagance. "Who knows," 
said the mother of so many monarchs, " that I may not be 
called on, some day, to support all these kings and queens ?" 
And when she was told that Napoleon's emancipation might be 
aided by her means, without hesitation she proffered all he had 
ever given her for his relief. A complete and splendid dinner- 
service of gold, which the Emperor, in his prosperity, pre- 
sented her, she bequeathed to Joseph, who used it on his table 
in Philadelphia. But her wealth, like his, was much exagge- 
rated by public opinion. 

Among the Bonaparte figures at Joseph's residence in Ncav 
Jersey, Point Breeze, executed in fine Italian marble by the best 
sculptors, none were more remarkable or suggestive than the 
bust of Laetitia, the mother, with her large, prominent, posi- 
tive features, her hair curling down the shoulders, and look 
altogether of strong character, in one room ; in another, the 
full-length statue of the naked baby king of Rome, her grand- 
son, sleeping ; a child born to such vast French expectations, 
his adolescence wasted in German mystic seclusion. On the 
mantelpiece in the dining-room stood the small bronze figure of 
General Bonaparte (now mine), cast, perhaps, before he dreamed 
of empire ; his princely son brought up ignorant of his father, 
till at last his wonderful career was revealed to the amazed 
youth by the leading author of his father's betrayal and over- 
throw, Marmont. ^ras of vicissitudes were in the three ages 
of the three marble figures, mother, son, and grandson ; and 
legends for future romance in the lives and deaths of historical 
personages, of whom their contemporaries arc divided into 



172 CARDINAL FESCH. 

eulogists and traducers, flatterers and maligners, confounding 
reality. 

Her half-brother, Cardinal Fesch, was the son of a captain 
in a Swiss regiment, serving with the French army in Corsica, 
garrisoned at Ajaccio, where he married her mother, after the 
death of her first husband. During part of the revolution, like 
the present Pope, Pio Nono, and many other clergymen. Cardinal 
Fesch was attached to the army. On his death, in 1839, he 
bequeathed to Joseph Bonaparte nearly his whole fortune, con- 
sisting of a large collection of paintings at Rome, then valued 
at some millions of dollars, but which sold for only some 
hundred thousand. Joseph expressed to me his wish to ex- 
change all those pictures for a grant of public lands, by act 
of Congress, to establish a gallery of paintings, to be preserved 
for exhibition at Washington. I have regretted, since, that I 
discouraged his overture, and did not submit the suggestion to 
Congress. Ambitious edifices, statues, paintings, gardens, and 
public enclosures already embellish Washington, favored by 
the most democratic chiefs of republican government. Jef- 
ferson ornamented the capitol. Jackson proposed to build a 
bridge over the Potomac, which would have been like a monu- 
ment of Roman grandeur. Mr. Clay suggested a zoological 
garden : and an admirable garden of plants might be fixed 
there, with contributions from Texas, California, Oregon — all 
the world. Building, farming, all mechanical manipulations, 
would be benefited by elegant models, like some already placed 
there by the most democratic of republican administrations ; 
and such cultivation of the elegant would promote the useful 
arts. 

General Arrighi, a Corsican cousin of Napoleon's mother, 
was created by him Duke of Padua ; and is still living in opu- 
lent retirement, having, unlike most of the Emperor's dukes 
and other noblemen, refused the honors tendered to him by 
the Bourbon kings. A respectable American tea merchant, 
named Thayer, married to an Englishwoman of humble situa- 
tion, who died an inhabitant of Paris, gave one of his daugh- 
ters in marriage to a son of the Duke of Padua, and another 
to a son of Bertrand, who visited this country, the follower of 



ELIZA. 173 

Napoleon at St. Helena. The American Tliayers, like the 
Corsican Arrighi, outlived the Bonapartes in Bourbon tolerance, 
and remain respectable French to this time : Mr. Thayer is 
now Postmaster-General of the French Republic. 

Napoleon's oldest sister, Eliza, was well educated at the 
royal establishment of St. Cyr. In 1797, when Napoleon's 
Italian victories had raised his fortune and his pride, she mar- 
ried, contrary to his wishes and ambitious views, a poor captain 
of infantry, Felix Bacchiocti, like herself noble and Corsican, 
and like her, too, respectable and well-disposed. Sometime 
after, having been excluded for that marriage from her brother's 
society and good-will, Eliza wrote to him — "My first child 
was born when you were angry with us : and I miscarried of 
the second. A happy pregnancy, and other agreeable circum- 
stances, make me hope now that the third will be a nephew, 
whom I promise you to make a soldier ; but wish him to bear 
your name, and that you should be his god-father. I trust 
that you will not refuse your sister. Because we are poor, you 
will not disdain us ; for, after all, you are our brother, our 
children are your only nephews, and we love you more than 
fortune." When Eliza became reconciled to Napoleon, she 
went to reside at Paris, and lived at first with her brother 
Lucien ; from whom she acquired the taste which she always 
displayed for literature and the fine arts. Poets, painters, 
dramatists, and men of letters were her favorite companions, 
particularly Boufflers, La Harpe, Chateaubriand and Fontanes, 
of whom the last named was said to be her lover : for of these 
warm-blooded Corsican females, marriageable at thirteen years 
of age, there was not one of Napoleon's three sisters, to whom 
one or more lovers Avere not ascribed by public, perhaps scan- 
dalous report. In 1804 the Emperor Napoleon created Eliza 
and her husband princes of Piombino, and soon after of Lucca, 
and Eliza Grand Duchess of Tuscany, of which she and her 
husband took possession, and were crowned as sovereigns in 
July 1805. Eliza governed there so ostentatiously that she 
was called the Scmiramis of Lucca ; her ambition inducing 
the ridiculous vanity of having coin struck with her prominent 
profile, almost concealing her husband's. She continued, 



174 ELIZA. 

however, to patronise letters and tlie arts ; and, like all the reign- 
ing Bonapartes, introduced many valuable improvements and 
governed wisely. On the occurrence of Napoleon's disasters 
in 1814, like him betrayed, deserted, and persecuted by those 
whom she had most favored and enriched, she fled to Naples, 
hoping for Murat's protection, which he refused her as he did 
his aid to Napoleon. On Napoleon's return from Elba in 1815, 
Eliza established herself at Trieste, under the Austrian govern- 
ment. Afterwards she joined her sister Caroline Murat at the 
castle of Haimbourg, not far from Vienna, and then at Brumm. 
Finally, she resided at her estate called Saint Andrea, near 
Trieste, with the assumed title of Countess of Compignano, 
where she died in August, 1820. Her only son was killed by 
a fall from his horse. Her only remaining child, a daughter, 
named Napoleon Eliza, born in 1806, married a rich nobleman 
of Ancona, Count Camarata, after whom she has come to be 
called the Camarata. "Eliza," said Napoleon, "has the cou- 
rage of an Amazon ; and like me, she cannot bear to be ruled." 
Some writers attribute to her a fierce remonstrance with her 
brother against the impending execution of the Duke d'Enghein. 
Her daughter, the Camarata, is remarkably like Napoleon in 
face and features, and strongly resembles her masculine mother 
in virihty, enterprise, and hardihood. On the expulsion of 
Charles X. from France, in 1830, she visited Vienna, in order 
to liberate her cousin, the young Duke of Reichstadt, and, as 
Napoleon XL, present him to the French people for their mon- 
arch, instead of Louis Philippe. Her statue as a girl was among 
the ornaments at Joseph Bonaparte's house in New Jersey, 
where I met two of the sons of Fouche, Duke of Otranto, so 
largely instrumental in the Emperor's overthrow, and from 
which house one of the young Fouches was sent by Joseph 
to Vienna, to endeavor to procure the enlargement of the young 
Napoleon, in order to put him at the head of France. Their 
father, the famous or infamous Fouche, died at the residence 
of Eliza Bonaparte, near Trieste, bitterly repentant of his 
agency in restoring the Bourbons to the French throne, thereby 
distressing France Avith a revival of obsolete royalty, scarcely 



PAULINE. 175 

less sanguinary or cruel, much more costly and disgraceful, 
than the most terrible revolution. 

Before Bonaparte went to Egypt, the second and most beau- 
tiful of his sisters, Pauline, married Emanuel Le Clerc, "who 
fell in love with lier when living near Marseilles in exile and 
poverty. He died at St. Domingo in 1802, commander of tlie 
French expedition for the recovery of that colony, whither she 
accompanied him, and also her brother Jerome, as commander of 
the sloop of war Epervier, afterwards captured from the French 
by the English, and from the English by the Americans. 
Pauline's son by Le Clerc, named Dermide by his godfather, 
Napoleon, died an infant. In November, 1803, she married 
Prince Camillus Borghese, a rich and respectable Italian of 
noble family, which furnished Pope Paul V. to the See of 
Rome, whose nephew, perhaps son, married Jane Bonaparte. 
Pauline had no issue by her second marriage. She was re- 
markable for being without the ambition of her two sisters. 
Splendour in dress, equipage, furniture, social distinction, was 
her aim ; devoted to Napoleon as a brother, and indebted to 
him for the munificent endowments by which he marked his 
affection for her, but always intractably independent of him as 
sovereign, — so self-willed that she often resisted her imperious 
brother's imperial desires ; and on several occasions exhibited 
so much spirit, that she was called a Spartan woman with Ar- 
mida's face. She was but thirteen years of age when taken 
by her mother from Corsica to France, where it was said that 
she was near being married to Freron, one of the most noto- 
rious Jacobins, which marriage was prevented by the claim of 
another female, insisting that she was Freron's wife. General 
Duphot, who was killed in Joseph Bonaparte's house when 
French minister at Rome, and at his side, by a mob, was among 
the many lovers enamoured by Pauline's beauty and charms. 
The Emperor created her Duchess of Guastalla, and gave her 
more than two hundred thousand dollars a year for her expen- 
sive mode of living, sometimes at Rome, sometimes near Paris, 
where she occupied the palace of Neuilly, before and afterwards 
the elegant residence of the Duke of Orleans, who left that 
residence to become Louis Philippe, King of the French. When 



176 PAULINE. 

Napoleon was overthro\Yn, Ncuilly became the property of 
Murat, and was in his occupation. On the return of the 
Bourbons, Louis XVIII. restored it to his cousin, the Duke 
of Orleans. But for many years the children of Murat 
claimed it as their property ; and soon after the revolution of 
1848, Lucien Murat left his long residence in this country 
and went to Europe, as was said, to establish, by law, his right 
to Neuilly. Lately it has been confiscated by President Bo- 
naparte to the State. The Orleans family have protested, and 
instituted legal proceedings to establish their title to a pro- 
perty, which, whomsoever it belongs to, has been subject to 
several of the many changes caused by French revolutions. 

When Napoleon was overthrown in 1814, his sister Pauline, 
who had often defied his imperial sway, left her Italian palaces 
and the splendors to which she seemed devoted, to share his 
banishment at Elba. Hastening to join him on his way thither, 
she kept house for him, oflfercd all her large means for hi;- 
aid, exchanged luxurious elegance for reduced and preca- 
rious subsistence,, and evinced attachment for her brother 
greater than for grandeur. The Emperor, before that trial 
and proof of her nature, used to say that she was only a 
drawing-room beauty, full of grace, and fond of display, but 
deficient in energy and fierceness, and unfit to govern. When 
put to the test, she proved better than he supposed. She 
was the medium of Napoleon's reconciliation with Lucien, and 
instrumental in the Emperor's return to France. After his 
final abdication, Pauline resided at Rome in elegant retirement, 
occupying one of the palaces of the Pi'ince Borghese (win 
lived at Florence) till she died, in June, 1825. 

Three months after the Consulate began, Bonaparte's young- 
est sister, Caroline, handsome, but not so beautiful as Pauline, 
married a fine-looking soldier, Joachim Murat, an innkeeper's 
son, who served with her brother in Italy and Egypt, an.' 
returned with him to France. With that handsome and he- 
roic, kind and amiable, but weak and unfortunate husband, 
Caroline was promoted to Grand Duchies and a kingdom ; first 
the German principality of Cleves and Berg, and then the 
kingdom of the two Sicilies. Infatuated, as nearly all Napo- 



CAROLINE, 177 

leon's favorites, like himself, were by excessive elevation, Ca- 
roline and INIurat, as queen and king of Naples deserted and 
betrayed the Emperor in the crisis of his ftite, by which they 
ruined themselves. JNIurat was put to death with all the inhu- 
man barbarity of Italian Bourbon vengeance, and Caroline 
degraded to humiliating supplication to the restored French 
Bourbons. Murat's genius was for a charge of cavalry. In 
that he was a brilliant giant. On a throne he was a good- 
humored pigmy, entirely out of his natural sphere. And he 
forfeited that to which his brother-in-law raised him even 
more by incapacity than treachery. Speaking of Caroline at 
St. Helena, Napoleon said that " she was regarded in infancy 
as the fool of the family, but appealed to some purpose from 
that injustice when formed by circumstances, and became a 
woman of great capacity. There was stuff in her," he said, 
"great firmness, and inordinate ambition." He used, when 
Emperor, to say — " Any thing Caroline undertakes she will 
accomplish, and she will never be ruled. They say she is 
ambitious and inconstant, as she may be for aught I know." 
During her husband's absemce, commanding the cavalry of 
Napoleon's grand armies, Cai'oline, as regent, governed the 
Neapolitan kingdom with abnity, where the reign of both 
king Joachim and his wife was liberal, judicious, and amelio- 
rating. She was a woman of so much talent and ambition, that 
Talleyrand said she had Cromwell's head on a pretty woman's 
shoulders. A rebuke she encountered from the Emperor was 
still more significant. When she was teasing him for more 
kingdoms, "To hear you talk," said he, "one might suppose 
that I have disappointed you of the inheritance of the late 
king, our father." " She was the slut that ruined us all," said 
Joseph, not long before his death, in family chat. "Oh!" said 
his gentle little wife, "don't say so of your sister." "Yes 
I will," replied Joseph, "for she deserves it." 

The two sons of Caroline and Joachim Murat took refuge in 
America ; lived here many years ; married here ; and Achilles, 
the elder, a man of information and republican professions, if 
not preferences, naturalized as an American citizen, died in 
J'lorida. Lucien, the younger, resided many years in New 
' Vol. III.— 12 



178 THE MURATS. 

Jersey, near liis uncle, Joseph Bonaparte, where he married Miss 
Caroline Fraser, the daughter, I believe, of an English half-pay 
officer. Joseph, as representing his sister in this country, re- 
fused his assent to that marriage ; not because of any objection 
to the lady, whose character and conduct, he said, were unex- 
ceptionable, and who, moreover, he added, resembled his sister 
Caroline ; but because Lucien was without fortune, or any 
means of supporting a family ; poor, in debt, and extravagant, 
so that his uncle, if consenting to the marriage, might be mo- 
rally bound for the charges of its results. While Lucien and 
Miss Eraser were thus affianced and hindered, a letter from 
his mother, the ex-queen, living retired in Germany, with the 
assumed title of Countess of Lipona, proposed an advantageous 
match for her son Lucien. Li the height of Murat's royal 
elevation, the sovereign of a small German principality, with 
a few thousand subjects, was happy to ally himself by mar- 
riage with a female relative of the Grand Duke of Berg and 
the Emperor Napoleon. Two daughters, the issue of that con- 
nexion, grew up to wotnanhood, after the execution of King 
Joachim and overthrow of the emperor. The father of these 
German princesses being dead, his princely widow, casting about 
for suitable connexions for her daughters, selected Lucien Murat 
for one of them. Her inheritance was part of a principality, 
some hundred subjects, and a European fortune very consider- 
able, compared with his complete destitution of any in America. 
His mother's suggestion of such a marriage, together with that 
of his cousin's mother, according to European, especially 
princely parental authority, was not to be disregarded. No 
sooner, therefore, was Lucien Murat apprised of so alarming a 
prevention of his union with Miss Fraser, than they hastened 
from Bordenton, where both lived, to Trenton, and there vrere 
forthwith lawfully married. Several children, and much diffi- 
culty in supporting them, being the fruits of that union, JMrs. 
Murat was obliged to maintain her husband and family by 
keeping a boarding-school, to prevent which, Joseph Bonaparte 
made them offers of assistance, that were rejected. On the 
downfal of Louis Philippe, once a schoolmaster likewise, and 
always a jealous and exclusive antagonist of the Bonaparte 



THE MURATS. 179 

' family in all its brandies, Lucien Murat went to France, to 
endeavor, by process of law, to recover some portion of his 
father's property, particularly the palace of Neuilly, General 
Eugene Cavaignac, lately at the head of the French Re- 
public, had been one of King Joachim's pages at Naples ; 
with whom Lucien Murat was, as soon as he appeared there, 
elected, in the place of his father's birth, a member of the 
French Convention, and afterwards one of the Paris members 
of the Legislature. Having had what his uncle Joseph 
often mentioned as the misfortune to be brought up a prince, 
Lucien Murat, during his many years residence in this coun- 
try, displayed the princely inclinations of excessive fondness 
for horses, field-sports, and bodily recreations ; in which, 
however, such eminent Frenchmen as Moreau and Grouchy 
likewise spent most of their time in America. Without his 
brother's literary qualifications or inclinations. Prince Lucien 
proved to be a popular republican in France, where he has 
recently become again prince, senator, and rich, by the boun- 
ties of his cousin, the President. Long American residence 
naturalized him in some American deportment and ideas ; 
republicanized by good health, good nature, and an empty 
purse. Fleeing, in affright, from wedlock with a rich princess 
in Germany, to take refuge in the arms of a portionless and 
untitled, but respectable wife in America, seems to infer a 
nature such as princes should admire. His elder brother, 
Achilles, also married in this country, was a lawyer, post- 
master and democrat in Florida; a small, ill-favored man, 
whose personal appearance was said to be owing to his mother, 
shortly before his birth, being with her brother Napoleon 
in the carriage when the infernal machine exploded near 
them. Lucien Murat, when he arrived in America, was an 
uncommonly handsome youth, in that respect well representing 
his still handsomer father and handsome mother. Of their two 
daughters, the elder married the Marquis Popoli of Bologna, 
and the younger, the Count Rasponi, of Ravenna. She is the 
author of a book entitled Maxims of Natural History in Ame- 
rica. Achilles Murat likewise published a work on American 
institutions. 



180 JOSEPH. 

Napoleon, from first to last, -when he was only a young 
soldier of fortune, Lieutenant or Major Bonaparte, to the last 
moment of his ambitious career as emperor, coveted wealth for 
its power, while he never loved money, and always sought gran- 
deur with inordinate desire. As eai-ly as in 1793-4, his advice 
to Joseph, then a handsome young man of agreeable manners, 
was to marry a woman of fortune. And dying in his prison at 
St. Helena, he sent directions to his kindred to intermarry their 
children with each other, so as to keep up the Bonaparte 
family, and, above all, not to mix it with any Bourbon blood. 
There was, in Marseilles, a house of rich bankers, named 
Clary, royalist in their politics, and largely endowed with 
wealth; the head of which was Nicholas Clary, whose son 
Nicholas became an opulent banker at Paris. His sister 
Eleanor, daughter of the elder Nicholas Clary, of Marseilles, 
married a Mr. Anthony (Anthoine), one of Avhose daughters 
married Suchet, eventually Marshal Duke of Albuferra, who, 
notwithstanding his connexion and promotion, became a noble 
servant of the Bourbon kings, by whom he was retained in 
their peerage ; an excellent general and honest man of talents, 
whose military services were conspicuous in many fields. Hi^ 
wife's sister, another Anthoine, married Decrez, a navai 
officer, made admiral and duke by Napoleon's creation, and 
his secretary of marine during all the Consulate and Empire ; 
but not, by all his connexion, favors and titles, faithfully 
attached to his benefactor, nor capable, Avithout patronage, 
of rising to dukedoms, or other dignities. Nicholas Clary's 
(of Marseilles) second daughter married Dejean, one of Napo- 
leon's senators, and one of the few steadfast to his principles 
and his patron. A third daughter married Villeneuve, post- 
master-general under the Empire. The fourth daughter, 
Julia, in 1794 married Joseph Bonaparte, and brought him 
a fortune of about eighty thousand dollars. Her rich con- 
nexions, however, he often told me, were profitable to him 
not only as a Frenchman and prince, but also when, as 
king of Spain, he had the treasures of Mexico and South 
America at his command. Nicholas Clary's (of Marseilles) 
fifth daughter, Desiree, married Bernadotte, and is now 



JOSEPH. 181 

Dowager Queen of Sweden. Joseph's wife, Julia Clary, small, 
liomelv, sicklj, amiable, domestic, affectionate, devout, unam- 
bitious, and somewhat avaricious, was with him only a short 
time when king in Naples, and never in Spain or America ; so 
that, during thirty of their nearly fifty years of married life, 
they did not live together. But both being of kind and 
amiable tempers, their harmony was uninterrupted ; and at 
last he died, affectionately residing with her in Florence, on 
the 28th of July, 1844 ; and she there, on the Tth of April, 
1845, a few months after him. His last will bears strong 
testimony to her quiet and retiring virtues, and to his own 
invariable disposition to make the best of whatever was to- 
lerable ; for Joseph, of an affectionate nature and kind feel- 
ings, was an optimist and a philosopher, not only on a throne, 
as a highly competent judge, General Lamarque, said of 
King Joseph, on the throne of Naples ; but always and 
everywhere, in Italy, Spain, France, England and America, 
on all occasions, in good or bad fortune, a philosopher ; with 
a great part extremely difficult of performance ; because second- 
ary to, and eclipsed by, that of an immense younger brother, 
to whom he was subjected, and with Avhom he is compared. 

Joseph's eldest daughter, Zenaide, several years with her 
father in this country, was educated and expected, her father 
told me, to be married to Francis I., Emperor of Austria, who 
was married four times. By his second wife, daughter of the 
king of Sardinia, his eldest daughter was Maria Louisa, who 
married Napoleon. The Austrian Emperor's fourth wife was 
the sister of Eugene Beauharnois' wife, both daughters of the 
king of Bavaria : the Austrian Emperor's wife having been 
married to, and divorced from, the king of Wurtemburg, whose 
daughter married Jerome Bonaparte. If Zenaide Bonaparte 
had been married, as expected, to that Austrian Emperor, pro- 
bably his daughter would not have been selected for Napoleon's 
wife, as she would have been step-daughter of his niece : on 
which might have depended the duration of his dynasty. 

Joseph Bonaparte and Julia Clary had two children, who 
lived to womanhood. Zenaide married Charles, the eldest son 
of Lucien Bonaparte, by whom she has a family of eight or 



182 ^ JOSEPH. 

nine sons and daughters. The eldest of them, Joseph, was 
born in Philadelphia, in the house then rented bj Joseph Bo- 
naparte from Stephen Girard, and inherited bj his grand- 
father's will, the principal part of his American property, which 
the grandson latterly converted into cash ; altogether, real 
and personal, not amounting to one hundred thousand dollars. 
Lucien Bonaparte having been invested by the Pope with an 
Italian principality, and entitled Prince of Canino, that estate 
and title, at his death, devolved on his eldest son Charles, who 
has lately risked both as a member of the Roman Republican 
Convention. His title during his father's life, and his son 
Joseph's during Charles's life, being Prince of Musignano, 
both those titles he renounced by the revolt, which has effected 
little else than indicating, perhaps, a general anxiety of the 
Roman, it may be Italian people, to free themselves from Aus- 
trian and ecclesiastical control. Both of Joseph's daughters 
lived several years with their father in this country ; Avhere 
Prince of Musignano, Charles Bonaparte, composed his work on 
Ornithology. After the return of Joseph's daughters to Eu- 
rope, the younger, Charlotte, married her cousin Napoleon 
Louis, eldest son of her uncle Louis, ex-king of Holland, entitled 
Count of St. Leu. Her husband died, after a short illness, 
taking part in the Italian revolt which followed the French 
revolution of 1830, as was suspected, of poison, though there 
was no proof of it ; and that suspicion has been extremely 
common in many such cases, in all ages and countries. His 
widow, Joseph's youngest daughter, Charlotte, died childless, 
in 1839, in Tuscany. 

Desiree Clary, much handsomer and more attractive than 
her elder sister Julia, without being regularly and openly affi- 
anced to Napoleon, was engaged, by an understanding between 
themselves, to be married soon after her sister's marriage to 
his brother Joseph. They had exchanged letters, portraits, 
and other tokens of love, when the Clarys, to escape the revo- 
lution, emigrated from France to Italy, and lived some time at 
Genoa, where Joseph Bonaparte and his wife went with them, 
and Joseph's first daughter was born, who died about a year old. 
Napoleon wrote to Joseph at Genoa, to ascertain whether Desiree 



JOSEPH. 183 

Clary's attachment for him remained unaltered : to -which Jo- 
seph answered, discouraging Napoleon by statements of the 
royalist and anti-revolutionary attachments of the Clarys ; 
■whereupon his engagement -^"ith Desiroe Clary -was put an end 
to ; and some time after she married Bernadotte, though a re- 
publican revolutionist much more pronounced than any Bona- 
parte. Several years afterwards Napoleon called for his love- 
letters, -^hich were given up by Desiree ; who, after marrying 
Bernadotte, continued so intimate with Bonaparte as to defer 
the christening of her son till her former lover could stand god- 
father to the child. With his romantic fondness for the wild 
poetry of Ossian, Bonaparte named Bernadotte's son Oscar ; 
by which title the godson now respectably reigns king of Sweden, 
long since his godfather, Napoleon, with all the Bonaparte kings 
and queens, have been dethroned, and their immediate descend- 
ants disfranchised of all royalty ; — for the Beauharnois have 
been much more fortunate as royalists than the Bonapartes, 
by whom the Beauharnois and the Bernadottes were raised to 
thrones. 

The brothers-in-law, Bernadotte and Joseph Bonaparte, re- 
mained to the last, I believe, on good terms ; and Joseph, who 
never quarrelled, by kindly interposition appeased several rup- 
tures between his brother Napoleon and brother-in-law Berna- 
dotte. But after giving him an imperial lift, and with liberal 
loans of money, to the crown-princedom, which paved his way 
to the kingdom of Sweden, Napoleon, wuth Joseph's earnest aid, 
in 1813, could not dissuade or deter the crown-prince Berna- 
dotte from heading the allied armies marching to invade France 
and overthrow the Emperor. Emperor Alexander proposing 
Bernadotte to supplant Napoleon as French Emperor, was irre- 
sistible motive for hostility and hope. Alexander held the 
Bourbons in undisguised contempt, and patronised Bernadotte, 
who used to say of Napoleon's vanity, that the Corsican was 
more of a Gascon than he (Bernadotte), who was born Gascon. 

Bonaparte's union with Desiree Clary would have been more 
of a love-match than his marriage with Josephine. Both ladies 
were royalists ; and Desiree a rich man's daughter. But she had 
no political influence, not even metropolitan residence ; whereas 



184 NAroLEOx. 

Josephine ^Yas a Parisian belle, widow of a nobleman and re- 
publican general, and her coterie had influence with the noble- 
man, Director Barras, whom she might induce to advance her 
husband, a promising aspirant near six years younger than 
herself. The calends of his advancement, by dates at that 
eventful period, are, 5th of October, 1795, (in the republican 
calendar, 13th Vendemiaire, of the fourth year of the Re- 
public,) battle of the Sections. There, for the first time, he 
commanded, and subdued the terrible, turbulent mob of Paris 
so effectually that there was no other occasion for their chastise- 
ment during the next twenty years. Very soon after that 
exploit, on the 26th of October, 1795, he was appointed com- 
mander of the army of the interior ; and Avithin four months, 
on the 23d of February, 1796, commander-in-chief of the army 
of Italy. On the eve of his departure to perform on that the- 
atre of his youthful and purest glory, he married Josephine 
Bcauharnois, the 8th of March, 1796, to whom he was beholden 
for promotion to it, and who was at all times his devoted do- 
mestic guardian if not faithful wife. 

With his first proclamation to the starving, ragged, and de- 
moralized army in Italy, began Bonaparte's meteoric zodiac. 
To omit his campaigns is to leave out his greatest glory. But 
all I attempt is to describe, not the hero, but the mere man, 
who, during twenty years, (from 1796 to 1816,) when every 
year was as pregnant as most centm-ies, was the focus of uni- 
versal animadversion. With much flattery and adulation, 
infinitely more detraction was mixed in his description ; and 
truth can be reached only through heaps of misrepresentation. 
Two-thirds of subjugated and exasperated Christendom taxed 
their sharpest wits and pointed their ablest pens to denigrate 
the terror of all. In this country England was our chief 
teacher, with some French instruction still more maledictory. 
Walter Scott's romantic fancy, spent on a life of Bonaparte, 
at least affects candour. Lamartine's imaginative vilification 
flows in a constant stream of undisguised predilection for 
wretched royalty. If on this side the broad Atlantic truth 
may be told, it seems impossible among European parasites 
and prejudices. 



NAPOLEON, 185 

Bonaparte's two marriages arc botli highly evidential of liis 
peculiar individuality. Of domestic habits, warm affections, 
and strong family attachments, sexual love was not his ruling 
passion. Both his marriages were made for him, and both for 
position. Neither was a love-match, the first hardly more than 
the second. Bonaparte was probably never an ardent lover. 
Lord Holland's lately published recollections, make him say 
truly of himself, " I am not very fond of women, don't like 
gambling, in fact nothing; I am altogether a political being." 
So his brother Joseph used to say that Napoleon, arguing from 
Joseph's frequent amours, would tell him that " No one must 
meddle with my political plans. Meddling with my politics is 
like meddling with your mistresses. Politics are my only mis- 
tress, and I will not allow any one to meddle with her." Scott 
rightly represents Josephine as rather courting Bonaparte than 
he her, and both for the advancement which her influence with 
Barras might procure her husband. Though a kind, fond hus- 
band to both his wives, yet he was rather uxorious than amor- 
ous. His ruling and absorbing passion was to govern. La- 
martin e, in his always charming but constant disparagement, 
generally introducing wives and mistresses in romantic stories, 
after making Napoleon ill-treat two wives and two mistresses, 
adds ''numerous fugitive amours." But how would he answer 
Josephine's biographical and other vindicators, who represent 
her as saying, that if it was her misfortune to have no children 
by her second husband, it was not her fault ? Bonaparte loved 
to rule more than he loved the sex ; and he w^ould not suffer 
any woman to rule. Born despotic, and made more so, there 
was a Salique law in his family as in his empire. He treated 
women as he did soldiers, with a kindness that seldom failed to 
attach them. But he sacrificed the feelings of women as he did 
the lives of soldiers, for his aggrandizement. When enormous 
power overthrown filled the world with profitable maledictions 
of him, domestic heartlessness was imputed to the man who, in 
his utmost degradation, was never deserted by more than one 
member of his numerous immediate family, (his sister Caroline, 
as queen of Naples,) by neither of his wives, neither of his mis- 
tresses, none of his soldiers, or by many of the masses. Wo- 



186 JOSEPHINE. 

men are, for the most part, witli monarclis, commodities or things 
of state, to be exchanged for provinces, or bargained for peace. 
Kings of Bavaria and Wm'temburg, and grand dukes of Baden, 
sold Napoleon their daughters. Austrian and Russian empe- 
rors, Spanish-Bourbon kings and princes, competed for his 
family alliance. The emperors of Austria and Russia bid 
highest for the advantage of marrying a daughter or sister, if, 
as they urged. Napoleon would make room for another wife by 
repudiating the one he had. Such are the imperial, royal, 
and princely apologists whose acts plead Napoleon's cause as a 
family man. 

Maria Joseph Rose de Tascher, styled De la Pagerie, born 
the 27th of June, 1763, in the little island of Martinique, >Yas 
thirty-three years old when she married Bonaparte, in March, 
1796, then twenty-seven. By one of those French assumptions 
unknown in English nomenclature, she is called Josephine. 
Napolione Bonaparte, as his name is registered in the marriage 
contract, — not Napoleon, as since spelt, nor Buonaparte, as 
many chose to name him, — Napolione Bonaparte, born a Corsi- 
can, and Maria Tascher, born an American, as monarchs of a 
vast French empire, awed all the world they did not own ; so that 
trifling particulars of their nativity, pedigree, persons and habits, 
are important historical circumstances. Napoleon's father, 
Charles, a Corsican noble, poor but respectable, was dissipated, 
I have understood, and died, before forty years old, of the same 
kind of cancerous affection of the stomach that carried off his 
son Napoleon and daughter Caroline before they reached old 
age. Of Josephine's father, history has not deigned to tell 
much. Her mother was a Creole of uneradicable preferences 
for a very narrow home, with a will as inflexible as that of her 
imperious son-in-law. Insensible to all his orders and her 
daughter's invitations, the transatlantic gnarled root of several 
royal dynasties of Europe, whose descendants are now connected 
with the royal families of Bavaria, Sweden, and Portugal, and 
the imperial Russian and Brazilian families, positively rejected 
all the French Emperor's orders to abandon her mean domesti- 
cation for Parisian splendor. Her slaves, guinea-pigs, goats, 
and other such pets, were dearer to her than her son-in-law's 



JOSEPHINE. 187 

grandeur. "She was," he said, "a mere boor, delighting in 
rabbits and dung." Nothing would induce her to leave her 
plantation, where she died of a cancer, in 1807 ; when, not 
ha^■ing been recognised as a member of the imperial family, its 
court regulations did not permit that mourning should be worn 
for her death. Still, like the Emperor's mother, likewise not 
without misgivings of his dynastic stability, the instincts of 
Josephine's poor ignorant mother were more prescient than all 
Napoleon's vast knowledge. Two simple old women felt, what 
he could not perceive, that his empire might not last. Joseph- 
ine's foster-sister, Lucette, disappointed of the emancipation 
from slavery which she insisted her mistress promised, at- 
tempted to poison her in a plate of soup, and was burned to 
death for the offence. 

That crone, with will as inflexible as her mighty son-in-law, 
as far as I know, had no child but the daughter entitled the 
Empress Josephine ; a lady of imperturbable sweetness of 
temper, with no more acrid or acid than her mother's sugar ; 
gracious, graceful, rather handsome, charitable, not much edu- 
cated, and less informed ; as fond of pets as her mother ; 
like Maria Antoinette, having faith in fortune-telling and 
palmistry ; who could only embroider, but was not taught 
either music or painting ; first offshoot of the root of several 
royal dynasties ; caressing to all mankind, and so intimate 
with several, that her courting condescension excited suspi- 
cions of her virtue. As soon as her lover was about to take 
command of the army of Italy, which her influence with Barras 
was effective in procuring for him, they were married. His 
marriage with an emperor's daughter was an imposing cere- 
monial ; — religious, gorgeous, and calamitous downfal. That 
with the West India widow, — humble stepping-stone to pro- 
digious prosperity, — according to revolutionary reforms, was 
a mere civil contract, at a broker's office, almost without wit- 
nesses, with no religious rite, and hardly solemnized at all. 
One obscure person, named Calmelet, on her part, and a young 
officer, scarcely of age, (Barrois,) on his, alone attended, when, 
as the broker certified, on the 8th of March, 1796, Napoleon 
and Josephine were married. No nuptial benediction was 



188 JOSEPHINE. 

given. No honey-moon followed. She married contrary to 
her notary's advice. He married opportunity. Within three 
days after that raw and cheerless March Tuesday, the bride- 
groom, much more enamored of glory than of woman, fired 
with lust of renown, and pregnant with genius, hastened from 
the bride's embrace to take possession of her dowry, the com- 
mand of an army to be forthwith led to the conquest of Italy. 
The first offspring of that marriage was the victory of Mon- 
tenotte, elder born of a hundred more from the same loins. 
Tender love-letters, however, from the victor in Italy to his 
wife at Paris, told her that he expected also other offspring, 
but which never came. Like all Bonaparte's female intercourse, 
his love-letters were warm with fondness and eloquent respect 
of woman. When the rising sun of his fame was up above 
the horizon, Josephine went to Italy to bask in its beams ; 
escorted by Barras' secretary, Charles Botot, a young officer, 
of whom, during Bonaparte's absence in Egypt, he was induced 
to become furiously jealous. Her first husband, Beauharnois, 
also angrily accused her of infidelity. But of all the aberra- 
tions imputed to Bonaparte, little has been said of his few in- 
fidelities to Josephine. Reconciled on his return to France, 
she was his constant companion and devoted wife during the 
Consulate and most of the Empire ; extravagant in expenses, 
with aristocratic propensities, always amiable, the tender and 
affectionate helpmate of a husband intensely desirous of pos- 
terity, till by innumerable flatterers, imperial, royal, princely, 
noble, and Jacobin, made to consider wives as only dynastic 
instruments. After several years of unexampled grandeur, 
the Empress Josephine began to be haunted with horrors of 
divorce at the death of her grandchild, Louis Bonaparte, and 
Hortensia Beauharnois' first son, first imperial heir, who died 
of croup, in Holland. And her fears helped to suggest her 
misfortune. At last, when more than fifty years old, and all 
hope of children was extinct, divorced, Josephine still con- 
tinued tenderly to love her husband, though married to another 
wife ; loved their child ; weeping in all the bitter grief of cruel 
repudiation, declaring, " the Emperor's soul is noble, his heart 
sympathizing and grateful; to the sentiments of an honest 



THE BEAUHARNOIS. 189 

man lie joins a "wonderful memory for local objects and little 
things." 

Ilcr children by her first husband were Ilortensia and Eugene 
Bcauharnois. In love with Duroc, Ilortensia was forced to 
marry Louis Bona^iarte, lie in love with the afterwards cele- 
brated wife of Lavalctte, and undisguisedly averse to marrying 
Ilortensia. Much better educated than her mother, she was 
without the hardier ambition or talents of Eliza and Caroline 
Bonaparte. Scandal was busy with Hortensia's character. 
Count Flahaut, said to be the natural son of Talleyrand and 
Madame de Sousa, the brilliant wife of a Portuguese ambas- 
sador, was reputed the father of one or more of Hortensia's 
children ; of whom Charles Louis Napoleon, now President of 
France, is the youngest ; so like his father, however, that his 
uncle Joseph said there can be no doubt, at any rate, of Louis' 
paternity ; so self-willed and silent a child, that his mother 
called him " the gentle stubborn." Eugene Beauharnois was not 
a man of shining talents ; an honorable, brave gentleman, and 
faithful to Napoleon till his first abdication. Then, protected 
and much befriended by the Emperor Alexander, he retired 
to Munich, his father-in-law the King of Bavaria's capital, 
where he remained passive during his step-father's last hundred 
days' struggle. Neither he or his sister were molested by Louis 
XVIII. on his restoration ; who, at her solicitation, allowed 
her the title of Duchess of St. Leu. As Joseph told me, 
Josephine's influence was constantly inclining the Emperor to 
take the old nobility into his service, — of whom her first hus- 
band, Beauharnois, deemed himself one, — which may have 
helped to establish several Beauharnois on thrones, Avhen not 
one is occupied by a Bonaparte. 

In 1805, Eugene was married to the King of Bavaria's 
daughter Augusta, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, then engaged to 
be married to the heir-apparent of the Grand Duke of Baden ; 
which engagement Napoleon caused to be dissolved, in order 
to marry his step-son to the Bavarian princess. By her, Eu- 
gene had two sons and four daughters. The eldest son mar- 
ried Donna Maria, now Queen of Portugal, and died six weeks 
after. The second son, now Duke of Leuchtenberg, married, 



190 THE BEAUIIARXOIS. 

in 1839, the second daughter of the Eraperor Nicholas of Rus- 
sia, by whom he has children. In 1827, Eugene Beauharnois' 
eldest daughter married Bernadotte's only son, Oscar, now king 
of Sweden, by whom he has several children. In 1829, another 
daughter of Eugene became the second wife, and afterwards Em- 
press Dowager of Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. The son of the 
Empress Josephine's aunt, Fanny Beauharnois, was appointed a 
Senator in 1804; and in 1810, Fanny Beauharnois was ap- 
pointed maid of honor to the Empress Maria Louisa. In 1806, 
her grand-daughter, Stephania Beauharnois, was married, by the 
Emperor Napoleon, to Prince Charles, grand-son of the Grand 
Duke of Baden, who, in 1811, succeeded his grand-father in 
that fine principality, of which Manheim is the metropolis. 
One of the many published legends of the French imperial 
family is, that Stephania Beauharnois was so averse to the 
husband to whom she was married, that she had a maid-servant 
to sleep in her bed-chamber, to prevent his access. In 1806, 
the three sisters of the Grand Duke of Baden were married 
to the Emperor of Russia, the King of Bavaria, and the King 
of Sweden. The son of Stephania Beauharnois and her grand- 
ducal husband prematurely dying very young, when bitter 
family hatred existed to the Beauharnois connexion, gave rise 
to strange conjectures. It was rumored that the child, like 
the man in the iron mask, was not dead, but strictly confined 
somewhere, until 1828, when he made his escape, and appeared | 
as the Caspar Hauser, who, at that time, produced so great ' 
a sensation : having never known a human being ; could hardly ' 
speak any language; was discovered, soon after his sudden and,, 
inexplicable appearance, covered with blood, and then founds 
murdered, without any discovery, or the least trace, of his mys- 
terious life or death. The margrave, Louis Augustus William, 
uncle to Stephania's husband, was next him to the principality, 
by the failure of male issue of her marriage with his nephew. 
To prevent his succession, her husband, by his last will, ap- 
pointed his half-brothers his heirs, who were illegitimate chil- 
dren of a left-handed, or what is called morganetic, marriage ; 
and the reigning Grand Duke of Baden is so by that testa- 
mentary arrangement. One of the Grand Duchess Stephania 



LUCIEX. 191 

Beauharnois' daughters married the Marquis of Douglas, son 
of the Scotch Duke of Hamilton, -who is a duke, also, by both 
English and French titles. Others of Josephine's connexions 
•were promoted bj her husband; two of them named Taschcr; 
also a Beauharnois, a cousin of her first husband, French 
ambassador in Spain, when seized by the Emperor. 

In 1793, Lucien Bonaparte married his first wife, Christine 
Boyer, an innkeeper's daughter, who died in 1800, leaving two 
daughters, one of whom, Charlotte, with her father's approba- 
tion, rejected Napoleon's desire that she should marry the 
Prince of Asturias, afterwards Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 
who solicited a female of the Bonaparte family for his second 
wife, having lost his first. Charlotte, destined for the Spanish 
crov.n, refused it, probably owing to her father's peremptory and 
passionate refusal to part with his second wife, in order to marry 
some princess, and mount the throne of Portugal, which the Em- 
peror Napoleon in vain labored to bring about. Lucien w^as a 
man of many amours ; and it has sometimes been said that Mi- 
chael, prince of Portugal, who contended with Pedro, Emperor 
of Brazil, for the crown of the former kingdom, was the offspring 
of Lucien by the Queen of Portugal, during his residence at 
Lisbon, as French minister there. His eldest daughter, Char- 
lotte, married the Italian prince, Gabrielli. Lucien's second 
daughter, by his first wife, married first a Swedish Count Cosse, 
from whom she was divorced, and then married Lord Dudley 
Stuart, brother of the Marquess of Bute, distinguished as a 
member of the House of Commons for his sympathies with 
the Poles and antipathy to their Russian masters. In 1803, 
Lucien, in despite and defiance of Napoleon's angry opposition, 
who, as head of the state, assumed also to be dictator of his 
family, married a beautiful widow, named Joubenthou, daughter 
of one Blcschamp ; her first husband having been, in some way, 
connected with the French expedition, in 1802, to St. Domingo, 
and dying there. Of Lucien's several children by her, the 
eldest son, Charles, as before mentioned, married his uncle Jo- 
seph's eldest daughter. One of Lucien's daughters married 
the Italian Prince Hercolani ; another married an Irish gentle- 
man named Wyse, from whom she was divorced. As a French- 



192 LOUIS — JEROME. 

man, Lucien "was so decided a republican that lie was sometimes 
called Brutus Bonaparte. His eldest son, Charles, renounced 
the papal title inherited from his father, as Prince of Canino. 
Three others of Lucien's sons, Louis, and Peter, and Anthony, 
all members, lately, of the French republican Legislature, all 
sided with the democratic party. 

Louis Bonaparte, in 1802, was most reluctantly compelled, by 
his brother Napoleon, to give up Miss Lepagerie, one of Jose- 
phine's cousins, to whom he was ardently attached, and marry 
her daughter, Hortensia Beauharnois, a lady of many attrac- 
tions, but with whom he always lived unhappily. Of their three 
sons, the first died an infant, a few years old; the second, 
married to Joseph's daughter Charlotte, as before mentioned, 
died in 1830, in the Italian revolt; and the third, born in 
1808, named Charles Louis Napoleon, is now the first President 
of the French Republic. Louis Bonaparte's first and true love. 
Miss Lapagerie, married Napoleon's aide-de-ca,mp and post- 
master-general, Lavallette, and was the well-known heroic agent 
of his escape, assisted by General Wilson, from prison, and the 
death designed for him by Louis XVIIL, and died insane, to 
the deep sorrow of Louis, who loved her to the last, and bitterly 
lamented her unhappy end. 

Jerome Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, was taken from 
college, and made a midshipman ; in 1802, as lieutenant, com- 
manding the sloop-of-war Epervier, (which vessel, after being 
taken by the .English from the French, was taken from the 
English by the Americans,) he accompanied his brother-in- 
law. General Le Clerc, on the expedition to St. Domingo, and, 
after a long cruise, landed in the United States. At Balti- 
more, he paid his addresses to Elizabeth Patterson, daughter 
of a rich merchant there, and niece of General Samuel Smith, 
mentioned in my second volume as commanding at Baltimore, 
when attacked by the English, in September, 1814. Her 
family, to prevent the marriage, sent her to Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. But, as usual in most such cases, objections were un- 
availing. On the 24th of December, 1803, they were married 
by Archbishop Carroll, according to the rites of the Roman 
Catholic church; and in the spring of 1805, went to Eu- 



JEROME. 193 

rope, in the United States sloop-of-war Erie. By order of the 
Emperor Napoleon, Jerome's wife was not allowed to land in 
Holland, where the vessel anchored in the Texel, and was 
therefore obliged to go to England, where, on the 2d of July, 
1805, she gave birth to Jerome Bonaparte's first son, who now 
lives in Baltimore. In 1807, that marriage was civilly, but 
not canonically annulled, the Pope refusing to gratify the Em- 
peror's exaction of that sacrifice. It has been said that Je- 
rome's heirs were put in the rescript of succession to the impe- 
rial throne, as inducement to relinquish his American wife. 
He had what his brother Joseph called the misfortune to be 
brought up almost a prince ; and carried extravagant dissipa- 
tion to what the Emperor called hideous libertinage. But the 
Emperor added that he afterwards reformed ; and that a good 
proof of it was his attachment to the excellent princess he mar- 
ried — Frederica Catharina, daughter of the Elector, created, by 
Napoleon, king of Wirtemburg, who married the sister of George 
n^ and William IV., kings of England. By that marriage, 
remotely connected with the English reigning royal family, 
Jerome Bonaparte, made king of Westphalia, and dethroned 
with his brother, had a son who died adult in Italy ; another 
son, since known as Napoleon, a democratic member of the 
French republican Legislature, and a daughter, Matilda, mar- 
ried to the Russian Count Demidofi". His son Napoleon is said 
to be a young man of good abilities ; and it was reported that 
Matilda was at one time about to be married to her cousin, the 
President of France. Jerome's queen, the Wirtemburg prin- 
cess, since dead, was a lady of fine personal appearance and 
exemplary conduct on all occasions. Throughout a life mostly 
of tribulation, she adhered to Jerome's fallen fortunes with con- 
stant fidelity ; resisted all the violent eiforts of her royal kin- 
dred to separate her from her destitute husband, and proved 
u bright example that, if it is sometimes a misfortune to be born 
a prince, a Avoman born a princess may excel in female virtues. 

By family marriages, the Bonapartes, or Beauharnois, are 
allied to the emperors of Russia and Brazil, the kings of Ba- 
varia, Wirtemburg and Sweden, the Queen of Portugal and the 
Grand Duke of Baden, all royal houses ; and remotely, with. 

Vol. III.— 13 



194 NAPOLEON. 

that of England. If Napoleon's object in cultivating royal 
connexions was the support which such alliances might aiford 
his family, in the event of his downfal or death, that object in 
some measure attained, though through much royal disgust and 
haughty estrangement, may be regarded as proof of his fore- 
sight and providence for his own household, which is not only 
pardonable, but laudable. But if his object was to establish 
and strengthen the throne founded by and for himself, a fourth 
French dynasty, of which he was to be the root, and his family 
and kinsfolk the branches, nothing was more fatal to that root 
than those branches. Affectionately fond, as he was, of his 
family, and they of him, he used them, naturally, as the most 
trustworthy instruments of his own imperial establishment. 
In his extreme distress they all, except his sister Caroline,' 
rallied to his relief, if not purely or perfectly disinterested ; 
for what human affection is so? — yet their royalties, together 
with his own imperial marriage, were the chief causes of his 
terrible ruin. Seldom has so numerous a family, in private 
life, with no dispute but for property, and no alienation, but 
by temper or accident, lived in harmony so long, or, to the 
last, remained so constantly affectionate. Even Josephine and 
Maria Louisa, his two wives, under circumstances of unexam- 
pled distress, persevered in their attachment to Napoleon, and 
he to both of them. To his mother, his brothers, one and all, 
his sisters, his step-children, his son, he was, throughout life, 
in death, and after it, devoted with admirable and exemplary 
constancy. Yet never did perversion of family union, and 
regard to personal by family aggrandizement, lead to catas- 
trophe and wreck of all things, domestic and national, so total, 
fatal and memorable. Close family alliance with an imperial 
princess, in ties of golden silk, which seemed irrefragable, was 
mysteriously broke, even after its prodigious contriver's 
downfal and death, by his son's mysterious dissolution. The 
son of imperial hope and pledge of dynastic perpetuity, like] 
the children, and most of the grand-children, of Louis XIV. 
the son of the Austrian princess and Louis XVL, the first and] 
most promising son of Louis Philippe, to be followed by him-i 
self and family, was doomed to introduce calamity in thej 



JOSEPH. 195 

family of the monarch, disgrace and dismemberment in the 
nation of France. 

Joseph Bonaparte "was Napoleon's most confidential brother 
and devoted friend ; before and after the Consulate, employed 
in the most important offices of the French government. He 
negotiated the treaties of Campo Formio and Lun^ville with 
Austria. As an excellent public speaker in the Council of Five 
Hundred, as well as by the amenity of his manners, and attrac- 
tions of his hospitality, he was one of Napoleon's effectual vin- 
dicators, absent or present, and assistants in November, 1799, 
when Joseph's judicious support was as valuable as Lucien's 
more demonstrative energy. Joseph was Napoleon's minister 
to arrange the concordat with the Pope, in 1800 ; and, with 
Roederer andFleurieu, concluded the treaty of that year with 
the American ministers, Ellsworth, Davie, and Murray ; by 
which long-pending complaints, and some hostilities between 
the United States and France, were closed by a treaty, sanc- 
tioning the true principle of freedom of the seas, that free 
ships make free goods, with just restrictions of blockade, contra- 
band and sea-search. At Morfontaine, his country-seat, where 
Joseph lived with noble hospitality, frequented by the best com- 
pany from all parts of Europe, he entertained the American min- 
isters, in October, to celebrate their treaty of the 30th of Sep- 
tember, 1800, by an elegant festival, during three days ; to which 
La Fayette and the Duke of La Rochefaucauld Liancourt were 
requested to bring whatever Americans they chose to invite. 
Napoleon and the two other Consuls attended ; Josephine, with 
her daughters, Hortensia Beauharnois, Pauline Le Clerc, and 
Caroline Murat, in the bloom of their youthful beauty ; the min- 
isters, and several other members of the government, of the Se- 
nate, Council of State, Legislative body, Tribunate, the whole 
diplomatic corps, and all Frenchmen who had lived in America. 
All the great events of the American Revolution were repre- 
sented by emblems and inscriptions, of which La Fayette was 
desired to suggest the scenes. The Prefect of the Department 
presenting Napoleon some ancient Roman medals, found near 
there, he gave them to the American ministers, to take to their 
country. Affable and conversable with all, he talked politics, 



196 JOSEPH. 

literature, science, tactics, and even music, Tvith the many 
eminent masters in those arts, and gallantry with a crowd of 
gay ladies who enlivened the entertainment. La Fayette 
and Napoleon conversed a great deal together on the most 
friendly terms. La Fayette's liberation from the Austrian 
dungeon was a special condition of the treaty of Campo 
Formio, for which his gratitude was strongly avowed to both 
Napoleon and Joseph. Morfontaine, embellished by artificial 
lakes, islands, rocks and plantations, was one of the most de- 
lightful country-seats in France. On the first day of the fes- 
tival a concert was performed by the principal musicians of 
Paris. Next day there was stag and hare hunting ; and in the 
evening, theatrical performances by the best actors, concluded 
with fireworks. After the treaty of Luneville with Austria, 
Joseph kept open house at Morfontaine the whole summer of 
1801. All his three brothers and sisters, the Austrian ambas- 
sador Cobentzl, Madame de Stael, then a lover of Joseph and 
courtier of Napoleon, with her lover Matthieu de Montmorenci, 
she reading Chateaubriand's Atala to the company ; Miot, a 
man of fine literary acquirements ; Renaud de St. Jean 
d'Angely, an eminent orator, both of whom were afterwards 
at Joseph's residence in New Jersey; Roederer, one of the 
negotiators of the American treaty ; Roederer, Miot and Re- 
naud, all three much distinguished as literary notabilities, and 
much attached to Joseph Bonaparte ; the poets Andrieux, Ar- 
naud and Boufflers ; Fontanes, an eminent statesman, before 
mentioned as a lover of Eliza Bonaparte, with his highly accom- 
plished wife ; Marmont, who afterwards, as Marshal Duke of 
Ragusa, was the loose corner-stone precipitating the Emperor's 
downfall, together with many other of the most remarkable 
persons of Europe, were guests of Morfontaine, that summer 
of nearly universal peace and expanding prosperity. For Na- 
poleon's advent was an era of peace, which was his interest, ' 
and therefore his ambition. From the 27th of March, 1793, 
when the Turkish government, which at first could not compre- 
hend what a republic was. acknowledged that of France, till the 
27th of March, 1802, when Great Britain concluded the last 
treaty of peace, but broken amity with the French Republic, 



JOSEPH. 197 

more than twenty treaties, ^vith nearly all tlic nations of the 
world, recognized the freedom, the consolidation, and the secu- 
rity of that great commonwealth in the midst of Europe. And 
Bonaparte might not have been cither able or disposed, without 
British incitement, to construct a throne upon its ruins. 
Among the recreations of his captivity at St. Helena, there is 
a full and masterly review of the maritime relations between 
France and the United States ; of the laws of the sea, and 
their British infringements ; and of his treaty with this coun- 
try, with an account of the negotiations, and celebration of 
peace at Joseph's residence. Unless more of a double-dealer 
than reason can be given to explain, Bonaparte was a sincere 
admirer of Washington, when, as First Consul, he ordered all 
the standards and flags of the French Republic to be put in 
mourning, during ten days, for that "great citizen," as he was 
styled in the order, " a great man, who fought against tyranny, 
whose name would be always dear to the French people, and 
to all the freemen of both worlds, especially to all French 
soldiers, like those of America, combatants for liberty and 
equality." The French Republic, he forcibly declared at the 
treaty of Campo Formio, was as clear as the noon-day sun in 
all its brightness. But haughty Chatham's proud son, to gratify 
the same stubborn British king and aristocracy, Avho coerced 
American colonies to independence, by reiterated wars, immense 
coalitions, and shedding the blood of the millions, of whose lives 
La Fayette, and others of Bonaparte's detractors, imputed to 
him the sacrifice for his aggrandizement, forced the republican 
chief magistrate to become successively victor, conqueror, em- 
peror, dictator, but still, from the wreck of his democratic 
despotism, to strike out European reforms. 

"While Napoleon was meditating and advancing the peaceful 
development of a great French empire, Joseph was enjo^'ing 
the present, without ambitious designs for the future, or pos- 
sible conception that the time Avould come when, at Point 
Breeze, he would seek refuge from the brilliant festivities of 
Morfontaine in his homelier, but not less hearty, hospitality of 
New Jersey, deploring his inability to soothe Napoleon's im- 
I prisonment and cruel death at St. Helena. A charming exist- 



198 JOSEPH — LUCIEN. 

cnce at Morfontalne, spent in elegant recreation, was to be 
followed bj the dreadful splendors of illegitimate royalty ; mo- 
dern royalty being precarious even by the grace of God, but 
when raised on the sovereignty of the people a mere mockery 
of grandeur. In the rational luxury of Morfontaine, Joseph 
Bonaparte's quiet nature was not only happier, but much more 
at home than in the rugged royalties dictated to him by Na- 
poleon. From the camps and battles of Sicily and Spain, the 
effeminate refinements of Naples, the splendid palaces of jMa- 
di'id and the Escurial, their sudden and short-lived monarch 
looked back with regret to the pleasures of Morfontaine, and 
perhaps forward with misgivings, but not so far, as to the seclu- 
sion of New Jersey. 

Not far from Morfontaine, Lucien Bonaparte, in 1801, then 
widower, just returned from his successful and lucrative em- 
bassy at Madrid, at his country residence, Plessis Chaumont, 
lived in similar hospitality. His sister Eliza and a Spanjsh 
Marchioness of Santa Cruz were the ladies domesticated at that 
establishment, where poets, dramatists, pohticians, painters, 
and other such agreeable guests, shared the pleasant welcome 
which Lucien and Eliza extended. 

No sooner had Napoleon, by the treaty of Luneville, made ■•'■ 
peace with Austria, than he sought it with England by direct J 
application, which the Pitt ministry haughtily and peremptorily i 
rejected ; sharpening their refusal by intimating that there 
was no stable government in France to make peace with, and ' 
would not be till the Bourbons were restored to their throne, 
Whereas, in his two years of chief-magistracy, Bonaparte had 
made peace with Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Russia, Turkey 
the African Barbary powers, Naples, Spain, Portugal, the 
United States of America, with all the world except the one 
only kingdom which persisted in war, and that avowedly agains 
him and republicanism rather than against France. Pitt wai 
at war with republicanism, when the Consular republican gi 
vernment of France had staunched all the wounds of tha 
country ; restored the finances ; organised public instruction 
recalled nearly all the royalists ; reinstated religion ; begai 
vast plans for territorial improvements, and for amelioratin 



JOSEPH. 199 

the laws by a new Civil code. In every thing, except foreign 
commerce and manufactures, the French republic was then 
more flourishing, progressive, and content, than the kingdom of 
Great Britain. It was hard, if not impossible, where the press 
and all public discussion is so free and manly as in England, 
for any ministry to make head against such undeniable reasons 
for peace with a rival nation. Pitt, Dundas, and Grcnville, 
therefore, gave way. Addington and Hawksbury took their 
places ; after some months of undisclosed dealing, through 
Otto, the French agent for prisoners in London, preliminaries 
of pacification were settled; and public negotiations were 
opened in December, 1801, at Amiens, between Joseph Bona- 
parte and Washington's prisoner at Yorktown, the Marquess 
of Cornwallis. Joseph was then a gay young man of thirty- 
three, but with ten years' experience, legislative and diplomatic, 
in public affairs ; well informed, discreet, conciliatory, and 
candid. I have never known a man whose word was more 
reliable ; whatever he said w^as the calm result of conviction, 
and generally of mature consideration. I have heard him often 
speak of that negotiation, and of Lord Cornwallis, of whom he 
had the highest opinion, as a noble specimen of that high- 
minded English and Spanish rectitude w^hich Joseph deemed 
more common in Spain than in France. Rufus King, who 
became acquainted, in England, with Lord Cornwallis, I have 
also heard, more than once, pronounce his eulogium. The 
captive in 1781, of Washington and Bochambeau, at York- 
town, was at Amiens, in 1801, a portly, handsome, old Eng- 
lish gentleman, nearly seventy years of age, who took his long 
ride on horseback every day before dinner, and then drank his 
bottle, or more, of wine with his son. Lord Brome, his son- 
in-law. Colonel Singleton, and his natural son. Captain Night- 
ingale, who were with him in France. Plain in dress, simple 
in manners, and true in unaffected conversation. Lord Corn- 
wallis's diplomacy Avas much superior to the craft of contriving 
sophistry. 

Similar apparent, but less transparent diplomacy, was Frank- 
lin's art, when, at the village of Passy, near Paris, he capti- 
vated France by simphcity, and enlightened Europe by a 



200 JOSEPH. 

model treaty enunciating the first principles of maritime liberty 
and international peace, destined to be universal if the Ame- 
rican Republic fulfils its mission. Then, at an age still more 
advanced than that of Cornwallis, sensible of the good policy 
of good cheer, Franklin likewise delighted in his bottle of 
wine, and the company, not of his natural son, but the 
natural son of his natural son, whom I found still living in 
Paris, with his natural children and their English mother, in 
1802. 

Anthony Merry, the first English minister at Washington, 
after the seat of our government was removed from Philadelphia 
to that then wilderness metropolis, unlike Lord Cornwallis, was 
a specimen of the pretentious and meddlesome European min- 
isters often courted in this country ; like Merry and Hammond, 
troublesome representatives of foreign government near ours. 
Diplomatic formalities, ofiicial exactions, and other littlenesses, 
which Lord Cornwallis despised and occasionally checked in 
Meri'y, were his annoying follies at Amiens and at Washington, 
where they found in President Jefferson, and his Secretaries 
Madison and Gallatin, well-bred gentlemen, uniting with radical 
democracy, dignity of deportment, and attraction of social re- 
finements. Jefierson, w^hile he disapproved some of Washing- 
ton's stately, if not antiquated, official habits as unrepublican, 
conformed his own personal intercourse and household, to the 
established standards of politeness and refinement, too deeply 
imbued with essential republicanism to deem vulgarity part of 
it, any more than fastidious ceremony indispensable to good 
government. The first British and French ministers he had 
to treat with. Merry and Turreau, were instances, one of the 
absurd formality, the other of the coarse brutality which the 
British and French monarchies have sometimes employed in 
their foreign missions, rather to foment strife than maintain 
amity with the American Republic. 

As Joseph Bonaparte was on his way from Paris to Amiens, 
it became a subject of somewhat anxious consideration, how the 
noble British ambassador should be received, what etiquette 
was proper to be observed, and what the dignity of the French 
Republic required in personal intercourse with the representa- 



PEACE OF AMIEXS. 201 

tive of the British crown. Joseph has more than once, with 
great good humor, dwelt to me on the manner by which Lord 
Cornwallis exploded those half-conceived apprehensions. Stand- 
ing at the carriage door as the yomig Frenchman, without title 
or parade, was about to get out, armed with lessons of Austrian 
and Italian propriety on such occasions, the portly old English 
gentleman gaily took him in his arms, lifted him to the ground, 
and at once dispelled, for ever, those hindrances of preposterous 
method, mostly disregarded by the real great, and annoyingly 
upheld only by the insignificant. Thenceforward the British 
and French embassies at Amiens, vied with each other, not 
only in familiar civilities, but in splendid hospitality; dined 
with each other every other day ; and, by the good common- 
sense of constant kindness and fairness. Lord Cornwallis over- 
coming Mr. Merry's frequent difiiculties, by which Joseph 
Bonaparte's patience and sagacity were exercised, brought the 
negotiations to a close satisfactory to both parties. 

In the course of them, it was intimated by the English to the 
French minister, that the First Consul's becoming king of 
France would give no umbrage to England ; so far were the 
Addington ministry from inheriting Pitt's insistance that a 
Bourbon on the French throne was necessary to peace with 
England. After all the terms had been settled, and nothing 
remained but to sign the treaty, fresh instructions from London 
directed a modification concerning the amount to be paid for 
the support of prisoners. But Cornwallis did not hesitate a 
moment to aflSx his signature, as agreed upon, without any 
change. He had given his word, he said, which bound him as 
a gentleman, and the government he represented, and he would 
not retract. 

If the peace of Amiens had been suifered by England to 
last three or four years, perhaps Bonaparte would never have 
been an emperor, almost certainly not the conquering dictator 
and despot which renewed and repeated hostilities enabled, if 
not forced him to become. The Bourbons and the English, 
with their stipendiaries, the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, 
who finally dethroned, also first enthroned him. The peace of 
Amiens was hardly a truce, at any rate a very short suspension 



202 WAE. 

of arms. Pitt, soon restored, superseded Addington, and re- 
sumption of hostilities was resolved on, six months after the 
treaty, in the autumn of 1802, when I witnessed Lord Whit- 
worth, the handsome English ambassador's arrival in November, 
at Paris, with his large wife, the Duchess of Dorset, sent there 
not to keep the peace, but put an end to it. 

Universal English, and common American impression is that 
Bonaparte, by rude and undignified provocation, insulted the 
British ambassador. Lord Whitworth, at a public Consular levee, 
in presence of other foreign ministers, and thus designedly 
precipitated hostilities, which he desired, between England and 
France. The facts, as understood in Paris at the time, were, 
that England, mortified by the treaty of Amiens and French 
republican progress, resolved on renewal of war, on which the 
re-establishment of Tory complete ascendency depended, with 
restoration of Pitt as prime minister. In the autumn of 1802, 
such was, therefore, the settled purpose of the Tories, with the 
king, George III., at their head. Conspicuous Whigs, Fox, Ers- 
kine, and their adherents, Alexander Baring, (afterwards Lord 
Ashburton,) Lord Henry Petty, (now Marquess of Lansdowne,) 
and others, whom I met at the American minister's and else- 
where, in Paris, were, if not the only, at any rate the principal 
English who paid their respects at the Consular court, or much 
visited France. Bonaparte was well aware of the British go- 
vernment's determination to renew hostilities, and desire of pre- 
texts for the rupture. Peltier's abuse of him in the London 
French Royal Gazette, the Ambigu Comique, countenanced by 
the English Tories, supported by Charles X. (Count d'Artois), 
and other Bourbon residents of London, the Addington ministry 
refused to punish, — however, wdsely and lawfully ; which im- 
punity the Chief Justice Ellenborough, a member of the privy 
council, on the trial of Peltier, obviously countenanced. These 
aggravations sharpened the First Consul's temper and tongue 
for severity of reproach, who had introduced a plainness of 
speech, together with directness of diplomacy, instead of the 
old honied phraseology, in which the bitterest animosities and 
deadliest designs were usually concealed. The First Consul's 
language to the British ambassador at that drawing-room was, 



BONAPARTE. 208 

therefore, sharp and significant. Cobeutzl, the Austrian min- 
ister, Luchesini, the Prussian, Azara, the Spanish, Caprara, 
the papal nuncio, together Avith ministers of Denmark, Sweden, 
and Bavaria, and of four of the then five European republics ; 
namely, the Helvetic, Batavian, Cisalpine, Ligurian, and also 
of the American, — were standing round, to each of Avhom 
Bonaparte addressed, a few polite words, and to many other 
eminent personages present. His tone Avas quick and authori- 
tative, as usual, but full of intelligence, courtesy and grace ; 
wearing the black stock and military boots, not yet discarded, 
and a{)plying the term citizen when he spoke to a Frenchman. 
"General Massena," said he to that personage, "cherished 
child of victory, I dreamt last night that I heard the roar of 
cannon." Then accosting the Spanish minister, "Chevalier 
Azara, tell your master how much we desire your alliance. Not 
because it is needful to us. No ; France fears no power, not 
even those overseas, who take umbrage at the smallest French 
brig that ploughs the Mediterranean, and set us at defiance. 
But here they come, and shall be attended to. Well, Lord 
'\^^litworth, what is the meaning of the alarm your cabinet be- 
trays ? Is it already tired of peace ? Does it want war ? AVhere- 
fore those declarations in Parliament ? Is the king, like the 
nation, to be deceived ? We are threatened in the notion of 
alarming us. Let them learn that if France can be conquered, 
it is impossible to alarm her. War is wanted — war — war ; so 
be it, with all its consequences, all its miseries. They shall have 
it implacably. Ay ! Carthage against Rome. I call you all to 
witness, gentlemen of the foreign missions, that I have not been 
the first to break peace. But understand, also, that I shall be 
the last, when it comes to arms, to lay them aside. Lord Whit- 
worth, you have heard what I say : convey it to yoiu- monarch. 
Gentlemen of the foreign missions, good-day." 

That was an uncommon strain from a chief-magistrate to the 
representative of a foreign power ; which the ambassador of 
Great Britain felt as offensive, and the public sentiment of his 
country resented as insolent. The diction and demeanor of 
public functionaries, above all of the highest, should be calm, 
subdued and forbearing. Still there was no war in Bonaparte's 



204 BONAPARTE. 

heightened Tvarning, which, on the contrary, was a premeditated 
departure from the ordinary tenor of such interviews intended 
to preserve peace. At that period of his career he had amassed 
mihtary fame enough for history, and deemed peace his policy 
— his Avay even to a throne, if that was his ambition. But Eng- 
land would make war, and help him forward with a momentum 
that at last overturned him and French royalty altogether. 

Although Bonaparte's advance to hereditary power was 
rapid, obvious, and his monarchical ambition indisputable, yet 
he alone personally fui-nished the only English pretext — there 
was no French national reason why England should renew war 
with France. If the French nation chose to make Bonaparte 
their monarch, that was their affair exclusively, with which Eng- 
land had nothing to do. If, indeed, his further elevation con- 
tributed, as its first movements had done, to pacify and tran- 
quillize France, England should have been gratified. The 
French troops assembled in Normandy, it might be suspected, 
were destined, furtively, to invade England, as before, in 1798, 
Bonaparte led an army to Egypt, and afterwards, in 1808, to 
Spain. There were also troops in Flanders, to be sent to take 
possession of Louisiana, before that province was sold to the 
United States, as it was at that time. But mere suspicions 
or apprehensions would not warrant the war which England 
recommenced. Eventual dethronement of Napoleon, tempo- 
rary restoration of the Bourbons, and the other long posterior 
events of 1813, '14, '15, may justify, by success, the English 
recourse to hostilities in 1803. But Bonaparte, if not blame- 
less as to France, was, at that time, void of offence toward Eng- 
land ; and driven beyond the monarchy he aimed at into dic- 
tatorial despotism by English aggression in 1803, succeeded 
by the several coalitions which she organized against him con- 
tinually till his final overthrow. 

The Bourbons constantly intrigued with every successive 
French repubhcan government for the restoration of what 
they always called, and thought, their throne. They bribed 
Mirabeau, bought Pichegreu, bought Barras, and, before Bo- 
naparte became Consul, attempted to buy him. Louis XVIII. 
sent Montgaillard to offer him the viceroyalty of Corsica, a 



BOURBONS. 205 

marshal's staif, and the ribbon of a royal order. Louis tlien, 
through the Abbe Montesquieu, ■who got the third Consul, Le 
Brun's, permission to approach Bonaparte, proffered whatever 
places he or his friends desired. Charles X. (Count of Artois) 
pent the Duchess of Guiche from London, who, through Jose- 
phine, always inclining to royalists, proposed to her husband 
to create him Constable, or whatever else he desired ; and to 
erect, in the Place Vendome, a high column, Avith a statue on 
the top, of Bonaparte crowning Louis XVIIL king. There 
was something at once ridiculous and ominous in the Bourbons 
proposing to raise Bonaparte to the dignity of Marshal and 
Constable, and to erect his statue on a column, crowning them, 
in the Place Vendome, where he constructed the column him- 
self, of the cannon captured in his victories, and surmounted 
by his statue as Emperor. He treated them always with kind- 
ness and contempt ; answered their overtures that they must 
not think of returning to France but over a hundred thousand 
dead bodies, which their restoration would cost, and did many 
more, without counting the numerous judicial murders after it, 
that were committed by their government. The Count of Lisle, 
Louis XVIIL, liberal, sensible, and only an intriguer, never en- 
couraged civil war or assassination. But the foolish Count of 
Artois, Charles X., was the chief of a band of conspirators es- 
tablished in London, there supplied with funds by the British 
government, with which, by Bonaparte's assassination, as he 
always said and thought, by his violent death, by civil war, 
and by any other atrocious means, to reinstate the Bourbon 
monarchy unreformed, just as it was before the revolution. 
For twelve years after they emigrated from France, those 
royal brothers never saw each other ; and never agreed, when 
either together or apart; Charles, the uncompromising royalist, 
rejecting all Louis' concessions towards reform. On Christmas 
eve, the 24th of December, 1800, one year after Bonaparte's 
consular installation, when he had recalled nearly all the emi- 
grants, restored the clergy, pensioned the Duke of Orleans' 
mother, and, by the whole course of his government, evinced 
not only a peaceable, wise and temperate, but conciliatory and 
generous spirit, especially toward the royalists and aristooracy, 



206 BONAPARTE. 

a hideous attempt was made by royalists to murder liim, with 
several of his family and friends, while going in his carriage to 
the opera. The devastations of what Avere called the infernal 
machine were still to be seen in Paris, two years afterwards, 
when I was there, as I stood on a pile of stones gathered from 
the ruins, to see Bonaparte pass at a review. So strong were 
his prejudices against the revolutionists, that he insisted the 
foul deed was done by Jacobins, many of whom he punished 
unjustly for it ; and it was some time before it was ascertained 
that the infernal machine was the abominable work of those 
most favored by the new ruler. So great Avas the disgust of 
the Emperor Paul of Russia at that ungrateful attempt, that 
he changed at once his whole policy. From being the pro- 
tector of the Bourbons, allowing them a considerable support, 
and the pretender, Louis XVIII., to reside at Mitau, in Cour- 
land, while ho sent Suwarrow to Italy and France, for Louis' 
restoration, Paul compelled Louis to leave Russia in the winter, 
expelled him with severity and indignity from the Russian 
dominions, at the same time making known his warm admira- 
tion and support of Bonaparte. Not long after, Paul was 
shockingly assassinated, as the French government paper, the 
Moniteur, plainly signified, by English contrivance or conni- 
vance, and when it was undeniable that English, perhaps, also, 
Russian funds, supplied the means for attempting Bonaparte's 
assassination. 

On the 18th of May, 1803, war was declared by England 
against France, after having been, as has been usual with Eng- 
lish hostilities for more than a century, carried on by captures 
at sea, some time before it was declared. To retaliate that 
injustice, Bonaparte detained all the English who happened to 
be in France when England declared war, which, though loudly 
complained of, was less unjust than the English seizures of 
property. Hostilities broke out afresh, therefore, with uncom- 
mon exasperation. Meneval, who was always at his elbow — 
did all but sleep with him — says it changed Bonaparte's whole 
nature. His active and fertile mind had been ruminating 
pacific improvements, roads, canals, embellishments of Paris 
and other cities ; commerce extended, St. Domingo recolonized ; 



BONAPARTE. 207 

Louisiana, acquired from Spain, developed by Frencli settle- 
ment ; East and West India French possessions. The genius 
■which in arms had not shone more than in politics ; which, as 
consul, revived France as soon and as much as it had resus- 
citated, as general, the demoralized French army of Italy, 
that vast genius was bent, with its well-nigh superhuman 
might, to render France, pacifically, the greatest nation. Bo- 
naparte's basis, his reliance, his palpable policy, was peace, 
conciliation, reform ; to administer, without offence, the com- 
monwealth, of which the Revolution had done much, and left 
him as testamentary executor to do the rest. Notwithstanding 
the hostilities by which his way was impeded and perplexed ; 
the royal plots (to be presently mentioned) by which his life 
was continually menaced, and his feelings excited ; the Con- 
sular administration, though rigid, was not sanguinary, re- 
vengeful, partial, spendthrift, or burdensome, as restored roy- 
alty proved, on his overthrow. Royalists and nobles, except 
those abroad in arms against their country, were restored to 
it ; revolutionists protected ; civil war extinguished ; religion, 
with its ministers, restored ; a system of public education be- 
gun ; the finances revived from the worst disorder ; crime 
diminished ; morals improved ; public corruption crushed ; 
property, notwithstanding its difiicult and delicate revolutionary 
mutations, secured ; stupendous and admirable territorial im- 
provements were begun. Personal freedom, which in England 
and this country is every one's enjoyment, the necessity and 
luxury of all, but which it seems extremely difficult, not only 
to establish, but even comprehend, in France, was wanting. 
Yet republican government was founded on perfect equality, 
with public and impartial justice to all alike. The expenses of 
government were not half what royalties have made them since ; 
the taxes not near so onerous ; the currency was coin. The 
chief magistrate was the head or creature of no party, but of 
the nation; unexceptionable in the distribution of vast pa- 
tronage ; absolute but impartial. The law, however rigorous, 
treated all alike. There were neither favorites nor victims, 
partialities nor persecutions. Of that vulgar and ruinous enor- 
mity of American democratic despotism, abrupt removal of 



208 BONAPARTE. 

subordinate incumbents from public employment, because they 
thought or voted against the transient occui>;iut of temporary 
power, the French dictator, even in the delirium of his enor- 
mous Empire, much less as a republican chief magistrate, 
hardly ever was guilty. His administration, consular and 
imperial, always abounded with his well-known opponents ; 
and scarcely ever, without cause, formal complaint, and fair 
trial, did he displace those notoriously inimical, if otherwise fit. 
Being Jacobin, royalist, regicide, no matter what, if other- 
wise meritorious, was no objection to public employment. 
Personal favor or solicitation was much less effectual than in 
either England or this country. When liberty was brought to 
naught, equality flourished as, not only in England, but Ame- 
rica, is unknown. No subaltern vexation was suffered, aristo- 
cratic or religious intolerance, or party domination. The bene- 
fits, reforms and improvements of the Revolution were in fair 
and full development by Bonaparte when war upon him steeled 
his nerves, hardened his heart, changed his policy, his system 
and his nature ; forced monarchical ambition, hastened and 
facilitated its tyrannical consummation and tremendous catas- 
trophe at last. 

If British policy and government had been then what it is 
avowedly and really now, and should always be, that of non- 
intervention, letting France govern herself as her people 
chose, Bonaparte might never have become Napoleon. To 
get rid of a chief magistrate who restored order, law, religion, 
the finances, power, and universal peace, war was made ; not 
declared, as at last, in 1815, against him personally, but, in 
1803, actually because he governed a French republic inoffen- 
sively and admirably. If, at that time, Bonaparte had died 
or resigned, the glories, aggrandizement and downfall of the 
Empire would not have ensued. But his name would have 
been pure, bright and clear of calumnious misrepresentation. 
A. moral man, an exemplary citizen ; amiable, temperate, 
chaste, strictly honest and disinterested ; famous as a military 
chieftain and civil administrator ; a conservative reformer, not 
a republican, but a founder of representative government. 

The infernal machine was a royalist, if not Boui'bon, attempt 



BONAPARTE. 209 

on Lis life early in the Consulate (1800), -which, abominating the 
Jacobins, he charged to them. And from that atrocity, during 
the whole consular government, till the execution of the Duke 
d'Enghein, in March, 1804, there were continual conspiracies by 
Bourbon princes, and their accessories in and from London, with 
English funds, ministerial and royal countenance, and material 
reinforcements, to overthrow the French Republic, assassinate its 
chief-magistrate, and by revolution restore the Bourbon family, 
claiming the throne by divine title and the kingdom as their 
family birthright. Napoleon acquitted Louis XVIIL of at- 
tempts on his life. Louis, if crafty and selfish, was a man of 
sense, aware of the impolicy of foul dealing. But Charles X., 
dissolute when young, devout in old age, always well-mannered 
and graceful, whom La Fayette used, in this country, to call a 
coward, was so foolish that he could hardly comprehend the 
imbecility of his bloody measuj-es. lie and George III. were 
chief architects in the rapid and towering elevation of Bonaparte 
to the French Empire. They dealt with the Consul in 1803, as. 
the Congress of Vienna did, in 1815, with the Emperor ; as an 
outlaw, the enemy of mankind, whom monarchs were divinely 
authorised to destroy by all means, no matter what. That a 
Bourbon on the French throne might be a harmless, perhaps 
useful British instrument, was Pitt's policy in 1803, and Wel- 
lington's in 1815 ; which, if French prosperity injured British, 
might be wise British policy. A man of redoubtable talents, 
ambition, and designs, like Bonaparte, at the head of the French 
government, was deemed dangerous and alarming. The war 
declared in 1803 by England was, therefore, as much against 
him, individually, though not nominally, as it was avowedly in 
1815, by the last coalition. 

The war of 1803 breaking out with furious exasperation, 
England was made to feel that she had provoked a terrible 
enemy. To retaliate her unjust seizures of French property, 
on board French vessels captured at sea, mthout notice, before 
war was declared, Bonaparte had all the English detained as 
prisoners who were travelling or resident in France : much 
less unwarrantably than England seized French vessels and 
kept as prisoners, after our declaration of war, all the Auici-ican 

Vol. IIL — 14 



210 BONAPARTE. 

sailors impressed into her service. In the same spirit of vigor- 
ous retaliation of hostihty, Bonaparte, without delay, seized 
Hanover, to the infinite annoyance of the British royal family, 
holding it as their royal patrimony. And, worse than all, he 
collected 2400 flat-bottomed boats, with the finest army in the 
world, at Bolougne, to invade England ; so that nearly all her 
inhabitants, at great cost of time, money, and disquiet, were 
put in commotion. 

War thus begun, in May, 1803, between August of that 
year and December, 1804, the royal conspirators in London 
were indefatigable with contrivances and English encourage- 
ment to keep Bonaparte busy, or destroy him at home. The 
Count d'Artois ; his son, the Duke of Berry ; their kinsman, the 
Duke of Enghein's father, the Duke of Bourbon ; all weak and 
violent Bourbons, with the princes Polignac, (afterwards so in- 
strumental in Charles X.'s dethronement,) Pichegru, and Du- 
mouriez, disgraced revolutionists, George Cadoudal, and other 
desperate royalists, without much concealment or the least he- 
sitation, almost boastfully plotted Bonaparte's removal by as- 
sassination, to be perpetrated by George Cadoudal, a reckless 
fellow, engaged, with a gang, for the purpose. Landed clan- 
destinely, from English vessels, on the French coast, fifty of 
those conspirators made good their way from places of conceal- 
ment, by night, to Paris, and there they were ascertained by 
the French police to be, but not known exactly where. Moreau 
was engaged with them, rejecting assassination and the Bourbon 
king, but promising to overturn the First Consul and his go- 
vernment. The Count d'Artois, and his son the Duke of Berry, 
more willing to superintend than risk their lives in such enter- 
prises, did not go to France, though the Duke of Berry is 
believed to have ventured as far as the coast. The Duke of 
Bourbon's son, the Duke of Enghein, said to be a bold young 
soldier, of about thirty-four years of age, stationed himself at 
the village of Ettenheim, in the territory of the Grand Duke 
of Baden, a short distance over the Rhine, beyond Strasburg, 
the French frontier city in that direction. At several out-posts 
there were English ministers or agents ; Drake at Munich, 
Spencer Smith (brother of the Admiral,) at Stuttgard, Taylor 



BOXArARTE. 211 

at Casscl, Wickliam at Berne, Rumboldt at Hamburg, Avith 
confidential instructions and funds to aid the Frencb armed 
emigrants, hanging on the French borders under English pav, 
in their endeavor to overcome Bonaparte any how. Pichegru 
and Moreau, in Paris, were to seduce the soldiery and revolu- 
tionize the country. George Cadoudal, with his gang there, 
were to waylay and murder the Consul. The Polignacs and 
Riviere, an aid-de-camp of the Count d'Artois, were there to 
restore the Bourbons ; the Duke of Berry to enter France 
from England ; the Duke of Enghein, as was believed, from Ger- 
many. The French armed emigrants were ordered, on penalty 
of forfeiting their English pensions, to remain at their stations, 
several of them with the Duke of Enghein, at Ettenheim, the 
rest at other places near the French frontier. Papers seized 
with the Duke, proved that when warned by his father not to 
remain so near France, on the crater of a combined explosion 
of revolution and bloodshed, he refused to leave his post. 

A French royalist, one of Bonaparte's ablest and bitterest 
enemies, whom I cite for that reason, Montgailliard, in his 
chronological history of France from 1787 to 1818, thus states 
the Bourbon conspiracy, English agency, design of George Ca- 
doudal, and Pichegru and Moreau's complicity : — 

" Pichegru, deported by the faction of September 3, 1797, having es- 
caped from Sinamary, and returned to Europe, joined the Bourbons, who 
arranged in London a plan of conspiracy adopted by tiie Englisli govern- 
ment. George Cadoudal, son of a JMorbihan miller, one of the most reso- 
lute Olds, debarking in September; 1803, was in Paris to co-operate in 
its execution. And Moreau, a weak man who helped to elevate Bona- 
parte, and had denounced his own commander, Pichegru, rejoined him for 
the attack on the common enemy." 

Of all this Bonaparte was kept well advised : that fifty or 
sixty Bourbon agents had left London and were concealed in 
Paris, who they were, and their errand of revolution and as- 
sassination. His aid-de-camp, Savary, had been sent to the 
.^coast for intelligence. There was, at that time, no minister of 
police. It was not a department, as before and since, Bona- 
parte having reformed and attached it to the judiciary, in order 
to render it less arbitrary and odious, and more regular. But 



212 BONAPARTE. 

the French government had secret agents in England, (of whom, 
Joseph has told me that, at another period, was one of the Po- 
lignacs.) R^al, Count Real as he was entitled, when, afterwards 
in exile in this country, privy counsellor, was prefect of police ; 
an intelligent and, I believe, respectable man, who had per- 
formed some official function, as Joseph also told me, at the 
execution of Louis XVI. Through various researches and dis- 
coveries, most of the conspiracy was ascertained ; and one of 
George Cadoudal's associates, named Quesnel, induced by pro- 
mises of pardon extended to him to make confession, betrayed 
nearly all the rest. Dumouriez was said to be at Ettenheim 
with the Duke d'Enghein ; and a personage treated with such 
princely homage that it could be nobody but the duke, was 
often in Paris, closeted with the other conspirators. Both 
these circumstances proved, eventually, mistakes. A French 
officer, named Thumery, pronounced in German like Dumou- 
riez, was taken for him. And Pichegru was the personage 
treated like a prince by the rest of the conspirators. 

AVhen the whole affair was discovered, and the hiding-places, 
Moreau was arrested at his country-seat, Grosbois, the 15th 
of February, 1804, and Pichegru the 28th of that month. On 
the 6th of April he was found in his cell strangled. George 
Cadoudal was executed the 10th of March ; and then the only 
considerable persons accused, not arrested, were the Duke 
d'Enghein and the supposed Dumouriez. 

Concerning the Duke d'Enghein, the First Consul consulted 
a council consisting of the other two consuls, Talleyrand, sec- 
retary of foreign affairs, Regnier, chief judge, and Fouche, a 
gratuitous pragmatic adviser. Talleyrand and Fouche, one 
representing the nobility, the other the Jacobinism of revolu- 
tionary France, were Bonaparte's two evil genii, from his first 
entrance upon civil life, in 1799, to his final expulsion from 
empire and from France, in 1815. Talleyrand then constrained 
Louis XVIII. on his second restoration to make Fouche his 
minister of police, and obliged the gloomy Duchess of Angou- 
leme to receive, with a married bishop, a regicide, Avho voted 
her father's execution. After some endurance of that shameful 
and dreadful royal time-serving for a tottering throne, Talley- 



DUKE d'exghein. 213 

rand's method of getting rid of Fouche was to offer him the 
American mission. "It is a distant, quiet, growing country, 
much behoklcn to France, where I passed my exile in safety, 
as you may," said the noble to the Jacobin ; who sought refuge 
and died at Eliza Bonaparte's (Madame Bacchiocci), in Italy, 
cursing his transcendental apostacies from republic to empire, 
Bourbons to Bonapartes, and Bonapartes to Bourbons. 

Should the Duke d'Enghein be seized in neutral territory, 
brought to Paris, tried, and, if found guilty, punished as one 
of the conspirators against the peace of France and the person 
of the First Consul, was the doubtful question on which Bona- 
parte anxiously consulted his counsellors. Fouche urged it 
vehemently. The air was full of daggers, he said, and those 
brandishing them were indispensable victims. He would an- 
swer for the production of more than proof enough — a trunk 
full of papers, he said — to justify conviction and punishment. 
Fouche, an amateur informer and prosecutor, amazingly 
shrewd, suspicious, dexterous, sinister, serviceable and unprin- 
cipled, had no aversion to bloodshed. Talleyrand, a nobleman 
democratized, a bishop married, a Bonapartist sworn against 
Bourbon restoration, assured the First Consul that nothing 
hindered his then approximated coronation so much as a 
public apprehension that, like Monk, he intended to be so weak 
as to put the crown on another head than his own. Camba- 
ceres, with judicial scruples, protested against violating neutral 
territory to seize the prince. It was then more than twelve 
years since the Bourbon blood-royal had been known in France. 
The Count of Provence, Louis XVIII., the Duke and Duchess 
of Angouleme, and the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe, had 
been long living in harmless obscurity. The Count d'Artois, 
Charles X., his son the Duke of Berry, with the three Condes, 
the Prince of Conde, his son the Duke of Bourbon, and his 
son the Duke of Enghein, had been busy, in arms and plots, 
under English pay, against their country, and " the common 
enemy," as Bonaparte was designated, Avhom, having restored 
peace and prosperity, the nobility and the clergy, in fact the 
country, nearly altogether admired, eulogized and supported. 
Ambitious of the throne to which the nation was desirous of 



214 DUKE d'engiiein. 

raising him, no tricks of popularity or luxury of circum- 
vention were at all necessary to .advance him. Public senti- 
ment, fomented by foreign enemies and Bourbon conspirators, 
removed every obstacle, facilitated and accelerated his imperial 
coronation. Large numbers of the French considered mon- 
archy necessary to French security and grandeur ; believing 
individual government more stable and durable than multi- 
tudinous ; and willing to substitute an elective monarch for one 
by divine right. The Bourbons and England, by plots, ex- 
citing indignation and war, feeding glory with fuel, were the 
greatest contributors to the design of the greatest of warriors. 
All people worship heroes. The French, above all, love to be 
ruled with energy and ostentation. With numberless memo- 
rials of congratulation from all parts, rejoicing that the people, 
as well as their chief magistrate, had escaped repeated attempts 
at his assassination, came flattering suggestions to Bonaparte 
that their peace and welfare should not be left dependent on 
Ids life, so incessantly endangered ; but that the Consul, trans- 
formed to monarch, would put it out of the power of enemies 
and traitors, by his death, to convulse the country ; and, above 
all, they called for vengeance on the traitors. Punish, they 
cried, crush, exterminate vile contrivers of atrocious plots. 
Make the guilty, one and all, feel, by condign punishment, that 
they are in greater peril than you and us. 

Such was the state of things and of public sentiment when 
the question was brought to judgment, whether a Bourbon 
prince conspirator should be seized and, if guilty, punished, 
like any other offender. Born noble himself, and educated by 
royal Bourbon bounty, Bonaparte was awed by reverence of all, 
and far above all that, blood royal. Of the Duke of Enghein, 
he knew nothing personally ; and he felt himself strong enough 
in French attachment, and European respect, to have no fears 
of Bourbon competition for the throne, of which he was then 
within a few weeks, a few steps, and a few sentences. But 
what would nobility, and what would prelacy say, not only in 
France, but throughout Europe, if he put to death one of the 
old royal family ? Never, in good or evil fortune, did he ill- 
treat a Bourbon. On the contrary, though Louis XVIII., 



DUKE d'engiiein. 215 

Charles X., and Louis Philippe, on the throne they shared 
uith him, treated him and all his family with perfidious, cruel, 
jealous, mean and audacious severity, banishment, confiscation, 
and repeatedly attempted assassination, in no instance did he 
ever show any fear of, or aversion to, any of them. He pen- 
sioned Louis Philippe's mother, the only Bourbon that did not 
iiy their country ; spared their possessions, respected their 
persons, and mitigated their misfortunes. At various periods, 
several of the continental states would have delivered them up 
to him, if demanded ; nor were miscreants wanting, such as 
some of those employed to murder him, if he bad once thought 
of that resort toward them» He made a King of Etruria of 
one insignificant Bourbon. He liberated and kindly sent away 
another, the Duke of Angouleme, when captured by General 
Grouchy. Those despicable creatures, the Spanish royal 
Bourbons, even thougli kidnapped and confined, he otherwise 
treated with respectful lenity. 

That Bonaparte was enormously ambitious is certain. His 
detractors say he was selfish, his admirers that he was wise ; 
and he was deeply imbued with reverence for royalty. That 
reverence, selfishness, wisdom and ambition, all combined to 
warn him of the extreme danger of putting to death the royal 
prince, whom his chief counsellors urged him to punish, while 
the whole country cried aloud for vengeance on the traitors 
disturbing public tranquillity. Anxious to conciliate, and pun- 
ish too, he was exercised by perplexing irresolution. The pre- 
fect of police. Real, after searches every Avhere, at last, through 
Quesnel's confessions, got the clue to all. Moreau, Pichegru, 
Cadoudal, the Polignacs, and Riviere were discovered and ar- 
rested, and the chief of the assassins, Cadoudal, promptly 
executed. It remained to secure Dumouriez and the Duke 
d'Enghein, who were considered within reach, and dangerous 
guilty men. Urged and determined to make an example of the 
Bourbon prince, Bonaparte gave orders, after careful investi- 
gations, for his seizure beyond the French frontier. Captain 
Chariot and Colonel Ordener were despatched for that purpose 
with a squadron of dragoons, and General Caulaincourt with 
m official letter of explanation to the Grand Duke of Baden. 



216 DUKE d'enghein. 

But so disturbed was the First Consul by the embarrassment 
of his responsibiUty that he retired from Paris to Malmaison, 
his country residence, for undisturbed meditation, where none 
but confidential counsellors were admitted ; and Bonaparte, 
naturally cheerful, talkative and confident, for some days 
moody, taciturn, and uneasy, betrayed, his detractors say, a 
blood-thirsty tyrant's remorseless guilt. The Duke d'En- 
ghein's unfortunate execution proved extremely detrimental 
to him. Whether he designed it, shall be left to the reader's 
judgment, on the negative testimony of Joseph Bonaparte and 
Count Real, respecting the mistake that prevented the par- 
don which they believed it was Bonaparte's intention to grant 
the Bourbon prince, after his conviction to be degraded by 
Bonaparte's mercy. Joseph's account, as I had it from him- 
self, is as follows: 

" On the morning of the 20th March, 1804, a message came to me at 
Morfontaine from my brother, begging me to come in all haste to Malmaison ; 
I set off immediately, without any suspicion vvhat the matter was, in a few 
hours arriving at Malmaison. Hardly had I got into the second inner court- 
yard and passed under the kind of tent set up by Fontaine, before I perceived 
my sister-in-law, Josephine, behind the window, who seemed much excited, 
and suddenly disappeared after making some unintelligible signs to me. In 
a moment she crossed the antechamber hastily, approached me, and before I 
had time to say a word, or ask Vv^here the First Consul was, she took me by 
the arm, and with her whole soul expressed in her affectionate face, 'Well! 
my dear brother,' she exclaimed, 'you do not know what is going on! The 
Duke of Enghein has been arrested, and is going to be tried ; and it is to 
talk this over with you that Bonaparte has sent for you. I know how good 
and kind his nature is, but I fear his advisers. There he is, walking with 
Talleyrand and talking of this matter. I cannot tell you how much I dread 
that cursed cripple. I beg of you to try and do away with the bad effect of 
his advice; but, above all things, do not say that you have seen me, or let 
them suppose that I have informed you of any thing. Every thing that you 
say will have much greater effect if he thinks that it comes from you alone. 
There! they are coming; I must escape!' As she hastily entered into the 
house, I saw my brother Napoleon and M. de Talleyrand drawing near, 
They had been for some time talking, and walking backwards and forwards 
from the bridge to the edge of the. wood. Every time that Napoleon came 
to the bridge, before taking another turn, he asked if I had arrived, — so im- 
patient was he to know what would be my view of the question which en- 
grossed him : for Napoleon loved in me, his elder brother, the companion of 
his childhood, his friend, and a friend whose honest advice could never to 



DUKE d'engiiein. 217 

suspected; and his tovverinor genius liked at times to lean on my diffident, 
but not timid judgment. As soon as he perceived me, he said, 'We have 
waited a long time for you, Mons. IMorfontaine ;' (he often called me by that 
name to rally me on my taste for rural embellishments.) ♦ Have you seen 
no one yet] I saw Josephine impatiently watching for you behind her 
window. Did not she run after you, and tell you what is happening V As 
he said this, he took my arm and left M. de Talleyrand, and we pursued our 
walk alone. Telling a fib, I did not mention my short interview with Jo- 
sepliine, but professed entire ignorance as to what lie had to tell me. Na- 
poleon tiien informed me that he had liad the Duke of Enghein arrested on 
suspicion of an understanding with General Dumouriez against his govern- 
ment and person; that the Duke of Enghein had arrived at Paris that very 
day, and he was about to have him tried. There was no harsh expression 
or bitter feeling in his words. They were rather the sentiments of an aus- 
tere but impartial judge, than those of a personal enemy, seeking vengeance 
and rejoiced in having found it. But what I first thought of was my brother 
pronouncing, as a judge, on the destiny of a Condc; and this brought to my 
recollection a crowd of associations, of ideas, and ancient recollections so 
vivid and powerful, even at that moment, that they withdrew me, in spite 
of myself, from the present to the past, with which tiie news that had been 
so abruptly announced to mc was in such strong contrast tiiat it quite over- 
came me. 

"After the conquest of Corsica, the French government wishing to make 
partizans among the principal families of the island, tliought, at any 
rate, to create sympathy for tlie future, by bringing young Corsicans to 
France, and educating them in French studies, manners, and ideas. Our 
family was poor but noble, and my father, Charles Bonaparte, had, as a pri- 
vate person, rendered service to France and the French government, whose 
administration he facilitated by the family patronage, which he liad long exer- 
cised among his countrymen, and by his familiar knowledge of the wants 
of the country. M. de Marbojuf, then Governor of Corsica, in the name of 
the King of France, had a relation, who was bishop of Autnn, holding the 
portfolio of benefices. He told my father how useful it might be to us there- 
after to be placed under the patronage of his relation, especially to me. As 
my father destined me for the church, the support of tlx) minister of bene- 
fices could not fail to get me some profitable living, and furnish me with the 
means of soon realizing the episcopacy. Napoleon and I, who were the two 
eldest, were, therefore, sent to the college of Autun, whilst our sister Eliza 
was placed at another school. I do not know why biographers, who have 
related, collected, and invented so many things about my brother and every 
member of the family, have never said a word about this first sojourn of 
Napoleon and me at the college of Autun. The fact is that I have seen it 
mentioned nowhere. 

" I soon succeeded. Napoleon's nature was more rebellious, particularly 
about small things of routine ; he undertook, readily and willingly, only 



218 DUKE d'engheix. 

what was new, difficult, and considerable. At the end of a few months I 
understood French tolerably well, whilst he still kept up his rather rude 
language ; I saved him reprimands by doing his exercises and translations 
for him. In the middle of the classical year we were separated for the fir.st 
time. Napoleon left me to enter the college of Brienne. He was then 
destined for the navy, and the military college of Brienne was better suited 
to his mathematical studies, and to his destination, than the college of Autun. 
My fatlier had just got for him a fellowship in the college of Brienne, and 
though it was painful for us to separate, we felt that it was so much the less 
expense for our family, and consoled each other by promising to write often, 
which we did not fail to do. 

" The end of the classical year came, and the prizes were to be distributed 
at the college of Autun. I was to have a very good share. I always had 
a strong literary taste ; which taste has accompanied and consoled me every- 
where. I was on my own ground, and was to be the favorite laureate. A 
few days before the distribution of prizes, there was rumored through the 
college, and all the young heads and the i)rof(3ssors' ambition were set in 
motion by a piece of news, the truth of which was soon confirmed. It was 
announced to us that the Governor of the Province of Burgundy, the Prince 
of Conde, who was on his way to Dijon to hold the state of Burgundy, would 
certainly pass through Antun, where he would stop for a moment, and pre- 
side at the distribution of prizes. The professors were even more excited 
than the pupils. The under governor of the college of Autun was a Mr. 
Simon, whom I have since got my brother to create bishop of Grenoble, and 
who was still in his episcopal seat in 1815, which, it may be said in passing, 
was not perhaps useless to Napoleon, when, at the time of his return from 
Elba, he wanted to get to Grenoble. Mr. Simon set himself to work to fete 
the Prince of Conde, and composed on the subject a cantata of sixty verses. 
The solemn day arrived. I performed my part to admiration, and when we 
afterwards went to receive the crown which the prince himself placed on 
our heads, I was the one whom he seemed to have most noticed. The 
bishop of Autun's friendship for our family, and no doubt, also, the curiosity 
which a little barbarian recently introduced into the centre of civilization 
inspired, contributed to attract the Prince's attention. He caressed me, 
complimented me on my progress, and made particular inquiries as to the 
intentions of my family with respect to me. The bishop of Autun said I 
was destined for the cliurch and that he had a living in reserve, which he 
would bestow on me as soon as the time came. 'And you, my lad,' said the 
Prince, ' have you your own projects, and have you made up your mind as 
to what you wishl' 'I wish,' said I, 'to serve the king;' then seeing him 
disposed to listen favorably to me, I took courage to tell him that it was not 
at all my wish, as it was that of my family, that I should enter the church, 
though the interest and kind protection of the bishop of Autun, ought to en- 
courage me, but that my dearest wish was to go into the army. The bishop 
of Autun would have objected to my project, but the Prince, who was 



DUKE D'ENOHEIN. 219 

Colonel-General of the French infantry, saw, with pleasure, these warlike 
dispositions on my part, and encouraged me to ask for what I wanted. I 
then declared my desire to enter the artillery, and it was determined that 
I should. Imagine my joy. I was prouder of the prince's caresses, and 
rejoiced more in his encouragement, that I have since in the two crowns 
that I iiave borne. 

"I immediately wrote a long letter to my brother Napoleon, imparting 
my happiness to him, and relating, in detail, all that had passed ; concluding 
by begging liim, out of friendship for me, to give up the navy and devote 
liimself to the artillery, that we might be in the same regiment, and pursue 
our career side by side. Napoleon immediately acceded to my proposal, 
abandoned, from that moment, all his naval projects, and replied that his 
mind was made up to dedicate himself with me to the artillery ; — with what 
success the world has since learned. Thus it was to this visit of the Prince 
of Condo, and to the kindness extended by him to one of his brothers, that 
Napoleon owed his resolution of entering on a career which paved the way 
to all his honors, 

" Such was the recollection that presented itself to my mind, when ray 
brother Napoleon, become the leader of the state, communicated to me tlie 
news of the arrest of the grandson of the Prince of Conde, and of his deter- 
mination to have him tried. ' Napoleon,' said I to him, ' do you remember 
rny .letter from Autun, about the visit of the Prince of Conde to our col- 
lege? Do you remember how proud I was to be crowned by him ? Do you 
remember the verses that I learnt by heart? Do you remember the prince's 
kindness, when I wished to give up my bright ecclesiastical prospects, to 
enter the artillery? Do you remember how, out of friendship for me, you 
gave up the navy, in order to enter the same corps? Who would have said, 
then, that you would be one day called on to pronounce, as a judge, the 
destiny of a grandson of the Prince of Conde ?' At these words I saw Na- 
poleon's countenance change, and a tear start; for my brother Napcjleon's 
nature was good and kind, though he often took as much pains to appear 
stern as others do to appear gentle. Leaning on my arm, ' What events,' 
said he, 'and what misfortunes in that family! But who knows whether, 
out of this arrest, may not spring good for the family, for the country, and 
fljr me? for out of it I will find means to show what I really am. I am 
strong enough not to fear the Bourbons. I am great enough, I think, for 
tliem not to suppose that I will degrade myself to the miserable part of 
Monk. They tell me that the Duke of Enghein is even disposed to antici- 
pate my favorable sentiments by writing to me; but whether he does or 
not, he shall find in me none but favorable dispositions; a wish to pardon 
him — not merely the wish, but the will. I, who am here to conciliate, I 
like to imagme to myself the romance of reconciliation ; and I smile at the 
possibility of extending a friendly hand to the unfortunate Duke of Enghein. 
You would like, one day, to see a descendant of the great Conde among 
your brother's aides-de-camp. For my part, I should be delighted, I assure 



220 DUKE d'enghein. 

you; and my heart is filled with good and generous sentiments towards 
him.' 

" Napoleon afterwards told me that he was inclined to clemency, but that 
was not the advice of his counsellors. Cambaceres was the one most dis- 
posed, with him, to be generous; Berthier, to whom he had just spoken, was 
less well disposed than Cambaceres. A Talleyrand, whom I had found 
talking with my brother, as two of his brothers, formerly in the suite of the 
Count d'Artois, were still in the service of the enemy, was particularly 
anxious to prove the sincerity of his adhesion, and by no means inclined to 
clemency. ' But,' said Napoleon to me, ' I do not suffer myself to be go- 
verned by interested counsels. I can read men's hearts, and am too well 
acquainted, like you, who were always my classical guide, with our old 
Corneille, of whom he repeated some lines, to allow myself to be deceived 
by a false appearance of zeal. I know, too well, that they would, at least, 
as willingly offer ray head to Pompey, if fortune played one of her cus- 
tomary freaks, as they now offer Pompey's head to Csesar. And then he 
repeated tliose verses of Corneille, of which he had always been fond, and 
regarded as good political advice. 

" ' Votre zele est faux, si seul il redoudoit 

Ce que le monde entier a pleins vceux souhatoit 
Et s'il vous a donne ces craintes trop subfiles 
Qui m'otcnt tous le fruit de nos guerres civiles, 
Ou I'honneur seul m'engage, et que pour terminer 
Je ne veux que celui de vaincre et pardonner, 
Ou mes plus dangereux et plus grands adversaires 
Sitot qu'ils sont vaincus ne sent plus que mes freres ; 
Et mon ambition ne va qu'a les forcer 
Ayant dompte leur peine a vivre et m'embracer. 
Oh! combien d'allegresse une si triste guerre 
Aurait elle laiss^e dessus toute la terre 
Si Ton voyait marcher dessus le meme char 
Vainqueurs de leur discorde et Pompee et Cssar.' 

" Napoleon wanted me to stay and dine at Malmaison, but I told him there 
were guests at Morfontaine whom I had myself invited, and named them to 
him. He then desired and authorized me, when I went home, to inform 
them of the state of mind in which I found and left him, and to study the 
impression which this news and his good intentions in favor of the Duke of 
Enghein made on that better part of tlie public. I returned to Morfontaine 
in time for dinner. My guests had arrived. At table the conversation 
turned on the rumors of the day. I mentioned my visit, in the morning, to 
Malmaison, and the very benevolent frame of mind in which I had found 
my brother. Madame de Stael, who was alongside of me, showed great 
joy at what I said of my brother's kind inclinations. But all my guests did 
not see things in the same light that Madame de Stael did; and it must be 



DUKE d'exgiiein. 221 

owned that those who belonged to the old nobility were not the most dis- 
posed quietly to endure the idea of new troubles, which might brino- on 
regenerated France an enterprise of the Bourbons and of their emigrant 
and foreign counsellors. 

"The next morning, early, T set off for Malmaison, and on my arrival, 
found my brother in a great passion against Real and the Jacobins. Real 
was one of the four counsellors of state charged with the general police. 
Paris was under his jurisdiction. On him devolved the duty of interrogating 
George Cadoudal, Pichegru, and the other persons involved in the last con- 
spiracy. There had been a special commission appointed for the Duke of 
Enghein's affair. As soon as it had pronounced sentence, it was sent, with- 
out delay, as had been prescribed, to Real, who was to go immediately and 
take the Consul's orders. The hour of execution had been fixed for six in 
the morning, and the sentence was to be put into the hands of Real at two 
o'clock the night before. There was, therefore, in this interval of four 
hours, more than the time necessary for Real to go from his house to Mal- 
maison, and from Malmaison to Vincennes. Two hours, at most, were 
enough. One of those fatal accidents, which disconcert all human fore- 
sight, changed everything. Real had already been called up three times 
that night by a clerk, who was always on guard near his bedchamber, and 
for matters of so little moment, that he found fault with it. The fourth 
time, when the letter from the commission arrived, the clerk, afraid of 
another reprimand, instead of wakening Real, carefully placed the despatch 
where he would certainly see it. Real did not awake until six in the 
morning, immediately perceived the despatch, opened it, read it, dressed 
himself, and set off, in great haste, for the Consul's orders, not supposing that 
it was then too late. As he entered Malmaison, he met the colonel of the 
gendarmerie, Savary, who had been to give an account of the execution of 
the Duke of Enghein. Napoleon, who was enraged at it, thought that the 
Jacobins had trifled with him, and that Real's excuse was fabricated to 
cover their plan, to throw the whole odium of their measures on the First 
Consul. That was the cause of his anger and rage against Real — but the 
mischief was done. 

" Such is Count Real's own account. He repeated it at Point Breeze, 
(Joseph Bonaparte's residence,) in the presence of Messrs. James Carret, 
Charles and Henry Lallemand, Mr. Nancrede the elder, Captain Sari, 
Judge Hopkinson, Felix Lacoste, and the brothers Peugnet, artillery 
officers, adding that he intended, in the Memoirs he was about to publish, to 
inform the public of every thing concerning the conspiracy of Georges, 
Pichegru, and Moreau. Mr. Carret is living at Fontaines, near Lyons; 
Mr. Nancrede at Paris; Mr. Sari, who was a naval officer on board the brig 
that conveyed the Emperor from Elba to France, is at Paris. Count Real 
bemg dead, it is to be hoped that the Countess Lacuee, his daughter and 
sole heiress, will, before long, fulfil her father's promise of publishing his 
Memoirs." 



222 DUKE d'e^-ghein. 

Memoirs of Talleyrand are understood to bo In the hands 
of M. de Bacourt, one of King Louis Philippe's ministers in 
this country, not to be published till thirty years after Talley- 
rand's death. Memoirs of Fouche may be published by his 
sons, to whom, with a large fortune, he is said to have left 
numerous original letters, and other biographical materials ; 
besides, of course, the duty of explaining their father's con- 
duct, and, if possible, redeeming his memory. When in this 
country, two of them, well-educated and intelligent gentlemen, 
who had found refuge with King Bernadotte, in Sweden, from 
the injustice and violence of Bourbon restoration in France, 
are believed to have entertained the plan, and to have consi- 
dered that they had the means, of removing from, certainly at 
present, an infamous parent the odium resting on his character. 
And a circumstance long afterwards took place in England 
which also deserves to be mentioned. Dining with Mr. Ro- 
gers, the poet, author of the Pleasures of Memory, when the 
Duke of Hamilton was among the guests, Joseph mentioned 
his conversation with Napoleon, as herein before stated ; adding 
that Real's Memoirs, written by him, were left to his daughter, 
Madame Lacuee, for publication, and would fully explain all 
the particulars of the Duke d'Enghein's unlucky death. An 
intelligent gentleman, the Baron Vander Wyer, who married 
a daughter of Mr. Bates, the American partner of the firm of 
Baring, Brothers and Co., long Belgian minister in London, 
who was also present, said to Joseph, " But what if those Me- 
moirs should never see the light ?" intimating, as was supposed, 
Mr. Vander Wyer's knowledge or suspicion that they had been 
suppressed. During the reigns of Louis XYIIL, Charles X., 
and even Louis Philippe, gross falsifications, both by suppres- 
sion and fabrication of docimients, were a common resort to 
misrepresent the conduct and character of Napoleon : at whose 
feet too many monarchs had crouched in adulation, not to 
render such abuses of history profitable to perpetrators. The 
only person with Bonaparte all the time, and a man perfectly 
reliable, his secretary, Meneval, fully narrates all that 
occurred. 



DUKE d'enqheix. 223 

After mentioning Real's oversleeping himself, Meneval states 
that Savary, on his way fromA^incennes to Malmaison, met Rc'al 
hurrying from Paris to Vincennes, and apprized him of the 
execution. Savary, who was on horseback, rode to Malmaison, 
where he arrived about eight o'clock in the morning, informed 
Bonaparte of the execution, and that the Prince had begged to 
see the First Consul. Without demanding more particulars, 
of which he was commonly very inquisitive, Bonaparte stopped 
Savary to ask what had become of Real, and whether he had 
not been at Vincennes. Being told not, he paced the room 
without saying more till Real arrived ; after exchanging a few 
words with whom, falling again into his reverie, he took his hat 
and left the room, merely saying, "A^ery well :" Real appearing 
surprised and disconcerted at the Consul's mood ; Bonaparte 
going up stairs to his chamber, and staying there alone some time. 

How important Real's explanation is to fill up this narrative 
is obvious. What Meneval justly calls a fatal event, occurred 
without Bonaparte's expectation ; injurious to the imperial ele- 
vation, then so nigh, on which his heart was set above all things. 
Familiar with bloodshed in battles, he had never fed the exe- 
cutioner with cold blood. Compassionate, ostentatiously cle- 
ment, seldom, if ever, in his immense career, had any person 
condemned to death, personally appealed to Bonaparte's mercy 
in vain. AMiile general, consul, and emperor, several memo- 
rable pardons granted by him strongly confirmed Joseph's im- 
pression that his brother's mind was filled with magnanimous 
contemplation of politic forgiveness for the Duke d'Enghein. 
Louis XVIII. 's reign reddened the scafibld with blood, urged 
by Charles X. ; whose continual claim to the crown was a series 
of attempts to remove Bonaparte by assassination, from that 
of the infernal machine to that which cost the Duke d'Enghein's 
life ; and from that again, to the other arranged in London, 
against which Fox deemed it his proper function, as English 
prime minister, ofiicially to warn Napoleon. Charles X.'s dis- 
solute youth suggested an argument from his history for Bona- 
parte. "AMiat can the king do to me?" haughtily asked that 
profligate prince, when IMaupeou, by Louis XVI. 's order, expos- 
tulated with him concerning his enormous debts and scandalous 



224 DUKE d'enghein. 

debaucheries. "What can he do?" replied the rainister, 
"why, Prince, his majesty can pardon you.'" Bonaparte was 
resolved signally to crush the conspiracy, and punish its actors ; 
but after the execution of Cadoudal, and other assassins, to 
pardon more eminent personages. The Polignacs and Riviere 
accordingly were pardoned. Pteal was sent by Bona,parte to 
Pichegru's dungeon, to offer him pardon on generous terms. 
Napoleon's first imperial act was to pardon Moreau, almost 
in defiance of his rejection of it. And his design was to 
make an example of the Bourbon prince by clemency, not 
a victim by impolitic execution. All the orders given by 
Bonaparte himself for immediate trial, and other steps appa- 
rently tending to fatal results, were to strike terror and 
subdue the prisoner. But Real was to interpose with hopes of 
mercy, on condition that the convict submitted to save his life 
by what, within a few years, scarce a prince or monarch in 
Europe did not readily submit to — Napoleon's ascendency. 
Among the precious memorials for history, lost in the confusion 
of his downfall, was a package of papers, of which Joseph had 
charge on the Emperor's first abdication, before kept in the impe- 
rial archives, and called the " Sovereign's Letters." One of them, 
as I have often heard Joseph say, was a letter from the Empe- 
ror Alexander to the Emperor Napoleon, among other adula- 
tory phrases writing, "When you go to war again, I desire to 
learn the art by serving as your aid-de-camp." Would the Duke 
of Enghein have refused that position, in exchange for his life ? 
It is easy to make a hero and a victim of this prince, com- 
pared with such dolts as the Dukes of Angouleme and Berry ; 
princes so weak and worthless as his father, the Duke of Bour- 
bon, and his cousin, the Count d'Artois. A prince who had, at 
any rate, spent some years in camps and was bred something of 
a soldier, appears to great advantage. The precipitation of his 
death was shocking ; its mischance, with Real's negligence, a 
strong appeal to universal sympathy. Very little of the poetry 
with which Lamartine and other such romance-writers embellish 
their narratives, is necessary to recommend to pity what at 
best is extremely ofiensive to humanity. The castle ditch, in 
which he was shot, of a raw, cold March morning, drizzling 



DUKE d'exgiiein. 225 

raivi, a cruel joke by some officer at the prisoner's alarm, a 
mistress in anguish not fiir off, (^-itliout which French pictures 
are never complete,) but above, and far above, all aggravations, 
the precious princely blood that flowed that fatal night, touched 
rocks gushing with commiseration and execration before Napo- 
leon's overthrow, and Avhich, after that event, poured forth 
cataracts of condemnation. 

Just when Cadoudal's blood was smoking from his execu- 
tion, Moreau, Pichegru, the Polignacs, Riviere, and other 
considerable personages imprisoned, and all proved guilty, the 
Duke of Berry expected to land from England, the whole 
plot of revolution and assassination frustrated, the other Bour- 
bon prince expected to enter France from Germany, with 
Dumouriez his instigator, as was believed, was secured on the 
night between the 15th and 16th of March, and rapidly con- 
veyed to Paris, then all in a ferment, crying for vengeance on 
such malefactors — all of them, without distinction. A court 
martial was ordered to assemble instantly at the suburban 
castle of Vincennes, to try a prisoner charged with bearing 
arms in English service against the French Republic, and with 
plots against the public tranquillity. The orders for the court 
martial proceeded directly from Bonaparte to General Murat, 
Governor of Paris, to whom they were taken by Colonel Sa- 
vary. But no officer was selected or personally designated for 
the court ; none of them knew who the prisoner was they were 
to try till they assembled at Yincennes, nor was even then ap- 
prized of the particulars of the conspiracy before stated. All 
they knew was that they were to try a prisoner, Avho they were 
told, when assembled, was the Duke d'Enghein ; but of whom 
they had heard no more than the general report public, that one 
or more of the Bourbon princes were involved in plots for revo- 
lution and assassination, which roused the whole country against 
them. Put on trial according to the summary and secret me- 
thods of court martial, the Prince, denying all part in any plan 
of assassination, not only confessed, but rather vauntingly, that 
he had borne arms against the French Republic ; and also that 
he had been several times in Strasburg, thougli he denied that 
it was for any treasonable purpose. His guilt thus established^ 

Vol. III. — 15 



226 DUKE d'exghein. 

and that guilt high treason, a special law of the Republic ren- 
dering it capital for a French emigrant to return to France, 
and the general law against treason, by bearing arms against 
its government, both violated, by the prisoner's confession, the 
court martial had no option but to find him guilty, and sentence 
him to death. 

After answering the interrogatories and at signing the re- 
cord, the prisoner deploring his predicament, entreated to be 
allowed to speak with the First Consul ; which request the 
judge-advocate desired him to write at the foot of the answers 
which he signed. He did so, earnestly requesting " a private 
audience with the First Consul, which my name, my rank, my 
mode of thinking, and the horror of my situation induce me to 
hope will not be refused." Nor would it have been if his 
prayer had reached the First Consul, who had taken measures 
for the desired audience ; when what could have been the sup- 
pliant Prince's object but to entreat mercy, which Bonaparte 
was anxious to extend on terms that would hardly have been 
rejected ? But so unquestionable was his guilt, so plain the 
duty of the court, so common, and mostly so fruitless and irk- 
some, are such appeals between sentence and execution, that 
but a single one of the court martial countenanced the request, 
and it was at once rejected. Real not being there to interpose 
in that supreme crisis, as Bonaparte had intended and arranged, 
the sentence was put in force with the prompt, stern, and 
shocking infliction of military despatch, by shooting the guilty 
Prince, before daylight, in the castle ditch. When apprised 
of that result by Savary and Real, evidently disconcerted, Bo- 
naparte, finding that his plan had been defeated, and that there 
was an end of the matter, said nothing but the "very well," 
which malediction readily makes to mean guilty approbation, but 
which might mean approval or acquiescence, or no more than that 
all being over it was useless to -dwell on the matter ; and ever 
after he disdained to excuse or extenuate a blow which his 
proud spirit insisted on his right to strike, having been provoked 
to it, and being fully justified by incessant and inhuman at- 
tempts of the Bourbons to assassinate him, and convulse France. 

Some French histories and biographies aver that Murat 



DUKE d'engiieix. 227 

shrunk from the murder, as malediction terms it, declaring that 
the facings of his regimentals should not be soiled with blood ; 
that he remonstrated with his brother-in-law against the execu- 
tion, and was sharply chid l^y Bonaparte for such weakness. If 
so, and I am not authorised by any better information to deny it, 
the servility of that protest is betokened by both the circumstance 
and the statement. If the Duke d'Enghein was guilty, (and he 
was not to be punished unless found guilty,) why should not 
Murat, or any other officer, assist at his trial and execution ? 
"Was innocence or royal blood the prisoner's sanctification ? 
Did the plebeian Murat shrink from such bloodshed as more 
heinous than plebeian ? And do French historians abet that 
discrimination ? European history, biography, philosophy andi 
prejudice teem with doctrine on that subject which falls not 
witliout great influence upon even this transatlantic country 
of traditions, institutions, and manhood diametrically opposite,' 
but which should render our humanity more independent. 

An anonymous work, of considerable weight in Germany, en- 
titled "jMemoirs taken from the Papers of a Statesman, concern- 
ing the secret Motives of the Cabinet In the War of the Revo- 
lution," assigns as the real cause of the illegal seizure and hasty 
execution of the Duke of Enghein, that, provoked by the abuse 
of the Bourbons from the French official Gazette, that high- 
spirited young Prince challenged Bonaparte to meet him on 
some neutral ground, and there, in single combat, settle the 
controversy. His second on the occasion was to be Gustavus 
Adolphus, the legitimate but eccentric king of Sweden, who 
was dethroned to make room for Bernadotte ; by whom (the 
king), the circumstance was afterwards made known. Gustavus 
Adolphus was remarkable for implacable hatred of Bonaparte ; 
but, according to the accounts most current of that bastard 
descendant of Gustavus Vasa, his mind was hardly sane enough 
to allow us to credit his assertions. 

Still, the vast social inflaence of royalty and aristocracy on 
public opinion diflFused reprobation of the execution of a prince 
of royal blood as an unpardonable crime ; and branded its 
alleged author as guilty of iniquity infinitely more heinous than 
ordinary homicide. By that last act of his consulate, Bona- 



228 DUKE d'exghein. 

parte, affronting caste, roused malediction more formidable than 
the five coalitions of which he overthrew four. When his first 
imperial ambassadors, Savary and Caulaincourt, repaired to 
St. Petersburg, the Russian nobility refused to receive them, 
as stained with the Duke d'Enghein's blood. The Emperor 
Alexander, probably privy to the brutal assassination of his 
I father, (one of the sons of whose chief murderer. Count Pahlen, 
! was the first Russian minister to the United States just before 
the war of 1812), Alexander himself, — so liberal in his politics 
that Madame de Stael says the old nobility of Europe de- 
nied his right to their society, — shrunk from Napoleon's am- 
bassadors, shunned by the Russian nobility. The Prussian 
war manifesto of the 9th October, 1805, denounced the Duke 
d'Enghein's death as a crime which, though Germany had not 
avenged, it would never forgive. English denunciation was not 
behindhand of an offence, perhaps, as fatal to Bonaparte as the 
seizure of Spain, his divorce, and invasion of Russia, closing 
his consular republic, and beginning his imperial dynasty 
with an infirmity, which he described as the great monarchical 
misfortune of not being born his own grandfather. 

Some French have supposed that if Murat, with his mag- 
nificent valor, had been allowed by Napoleon, as Murat soli- 
cited, to command the French cavalry at Waterloo, it might 
have changed the fortune of that day. I have heard Moreau, 
more than once, loudly affirm that he made Murat's fortune by 
disgracing him for cowardice : that at some battle where Mo- 
reau commanded, he sent Murat, then an inferior officer, to the 
rear for want of courage, and afterwards home ; where, being a 
handsome young man, he captivated Bonaparte's youngest sister, 
Caroline, who married and raised him to grand dukedoms and a 
kingdom. The catastrophe of Murat's brilliant career of ro- 
mantic courage was a cruel execution, by order of the Bourbon 
King of Naples, infinitely more barbarous than that of the Duke 
d'Enghein, from which Murat, it is said, recoiled more than from 
his own. Fox, who warned Bonaparte of an attempt to assas- 
sinate him, truly said, in Parliament, that " the whole history 
of the nineteenth century is little more than an account of the 
wars and calamities arising from the restless ambition, the 



DUKE d'enghein, 229 

intrigues, and the perfidy of the house of Bourbon." But the 
Bourbons, like the Guclphs, had the charm of birth. The 
Count d'Artois and the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles 
X. and George IV,, -when two of the most debauched profli- 
gates of Europe, were saluted, respectively, as the first gentle- 
men of France and of England. The first time I heard Mo- 
rcau pronounce Murat a coward, was in presence, among many 
others, of two of the near kinsmen of Penn, the founder of 
Pennsylvania, a commonwealth already more considerable than 
several European kingdoms. But the family of Penn are said 
to prize alliance with some insignificant earldom more than de- 
scent from the founder of a commonwealth. If the new-made 
King Joachim dreaded the disgrace of official participation in 
the execution of a prince royal, scarce any but vulgar sympathy, 
without historical consolation, solaces his own more unmerited 
and shocking execution to appease the kindred of that prince 
royal. 

When Peltier was acquitted, in defiance of First Consul Bo- 
naparte's efibrts to convict him of libels provoking his assassi- 
nation, I was in London ; where the French Bom'bon princes 
and their abettors, almost without concealment, by divine right, 
urged that atrocity. At the same time I was hard by there, 
when Colonel Despard, with several others convicted of treason, 
were executed according to the temfic English method of that 
punishment ; the same member of the king's privy-council, 
Chief Justice Ellenborough, presiding at both those prosecu- 
tions. The proof of Despard's treason was slight ; that of 
Enghein's unquestionable. The proof of Peltier's ofience 
was in half the printshop windows of London, while England 
rang with congratulations for his acquittal. Not a sigh, scarce 
a sympathy, followed Colonel Despard's mangled corpse to the 
grave, while myriads of bosoms soon swelled with indignation 
at the death of the Duke d'Enghein. 

Two of the Bourbon princes who then, in London, plotted 
Bonaparte's assassination, were themselves assassinated — the 
Duke of Berry and the Duke of Bourbon. The Duke of 
Berry was father of the present legitimate claimant, by 
divine right, of the French throne, Henry V., whose strumpet 



230 DUKE d'exghein. 

mother was hunted out of France into Italy, like some noxious 
animal, by King Louis Philippe, where Bonaparte's imperial 
strumpet wife closed her disgusting reign. Whether the Duke 
of Enghein's father, the Duke of Bourbon, died by assassination 
or suicide, could not be ascertained when he was found hanged. 
But King Louis Philippe was accused of causing his death from 
lust of property, his son, the Duke of Aumale, being enriched 
by it, as Bonaparte was accused of the Duke of Enghein's death 
from lust of empire. Caste deplored the murdered royal dukes, 
and excused the impure royal princesses, but condemned the 
upstart's justice. 

r^A universal genius, with fierce and fiery soul, just and ele- 
vated mind, volcanic imagination, good, tender, generous and 
beneficent heart, stoic courage for war's horrors, refined and 
elegant talents for all the arts of peace, exemplary domestic 
afi"ections, and prodigious knowledge of men, science, and all 
things ; transformed, by circumstances, from Bonaparte to Na- 
poleon ; by imperial, supplanted republican nomenclature and 
regimen ; by enormous renown, pure, bright, and true glory ; 
and, from the fatal epoch of the Duke d'Enghein's justifiable 
but unfortunate execution, raised the vast empire, which, after 
ten years' inordinate augmentation, fell with tremendous 
casualty, leaving the world to become either Cossack or repub- 
lican, Asiatic or American. To transatlantic independence it 
belongs to help posterity to understand the real character of 
that dictator, rescued from European, both exasperated deni- 
gration and awe-struck adulation. American language and 
influence will dictate philosophy and history among the pos- 
terities. 



I 



FRENCU EMPIRE. 231 

CHAPTER IV. 

FRENCH REPUBLICAN EMPIRE. 

1804 — 1815 — 1844. 

The Consul Bonaparte elected Emperor Napoleon — Reformed Royalty of 
the Empire — Universal Suffrage — Banishment and Death of Moreau — 
Empire distinguished, by Joseph, from Kingdom — Republican France — 
Battle of Austerlitz and Peace of Presburg — Marriages and Coronations 
of the Bonapartes — Thrones refused by Lucien, Louis, Eugene, and 
Charlotte — Accepted by Joseph and Jerome — Detriment of Bonaparte 
Family to Napoleon Dynasty — Unprivileged Aristocracy — Treaty of 
Presburg — Divorce of Josephine — Espousal of Maria Louisa — Seizure 
of Spain — Inducements — Bourbons — Spanish War — Its Atrocities and 
Results — Emancipation of all Spanish America — Invasion of Russia — 
Napoleon's Reverses — Fatal Tyranny — Deserted by his Creatures, and 
afraid of the People — Maria Louisa and her Child's flight from Paris — 
Captured at Blois — Napoleon's Abdication — Death of Josephine — Sebas- 
tiani — Pozzo di Borgo — Napoleon's Return from Elba — Public Sentiment 
— His dread of the People — Their love of Him — Second Abdication — 
Banishment — Surrender — Transportation — Confinement — Death — Sove- 
reigns' Letters — Joseph in America — La Fayette — Duke of Reichstadt 
— Joseph in England — His Death in Italy — Representative Government. 

Regretting, as lovers of liberty must, that the Consulate 
•was superseded by the Empire, we may inquii'e whether that 
change was inevitable ; Bonaparte's power enabling him to do 
as he willed with France. Could he have prevented war ? 
Did he welcome it as the way to Empire ? A French republic, 
the vast resources of France developed by the vast genius of 
such a republican ruler, not for hostilities, but peaceable 
establishment, must, in the ten years of Napoleon's imperial 
reign, have had much greater effects than its wars on Eu- 
rope; might have realized Henry IV. 's benevolent idea of 
confederation of all the European states in one great com- 
monwealth, and counteracted English maritime supremacy 
more effectually than the continental system. And what 
might not have been its American results ; with Louisiana a 
French colony, instead of annexed to these United States? 



-oi: FREXCH EMPIRE. 

He continued to live as usual, v.-itliout any change in liis 
mode of life, or precaution for his personal security, though, 

by royalist and English animosity, misrepresented as wearing 
concealed armour, shunning personal exposure, and otherwise 
betraying the guilty apprehensions of a tyrant. He had no 
special animosity against the Duke d'Enghein, of whom he had 
hardly ever heard. In the fermentation of passions excited by 
Bourbon efforts to change the government by murdering the 
chief magistrate, and convulsing the country, a chain of un- 
lucky mistakes led to the death of the Bom'bon prince, guilty of 
high treason by his OM'n confession, and all France exasperated, 
was indignant at the plots in which, with his family, he was ira- 

[ plicated. According to American ideas of treason and of indi- 
viduality, such a suffering prince was no martyr. Nor did his 
execution make any great sensation in France at the time. 
After his overthrow sanctioned every misrepresentation, the 
fallen Emperor, on the burning rock of St. Helena, expiring 
by slow tortures, proudly averring that he had never committed 
crimes, disdained all extenuation for a homicide, which he jus- 
tified by his right as a man to vindicate his life from assassins, 
his duty and right as a magistrate to punish all their abettors 
without distinction. If his mind was turned to pardon, he 
would not condescend to mention that, or plead mistake, for 
an act which he deemed perfectly justifiable. 

In the rapid succession of great events which followed Eng- 
lish and Bourbon plots against him, his creation as Emperor 
of the French took place in less than two months after the ex- 
ecution of the Duke d'Enghein. In May, 1804, more than 
three millions and a half of affirmative against less than twenty- 
six hundred negative votes, all taken by universal suffrage, 
ratified, by title and dynastic perpetuity, the power of the 

I chief who for some time had been otherwise supreme ; aspiring 
and endeavoring to be crowned; and eventually won to the 
pageantry, frivolity, and, in American appreciation, the follies 
of regal illusion. Still, his imperial, like his consular accession, 
was not merely usurped by forcing opportunity. To maintain 
a French Republic in the midst of surrounding European mon- 
archies, was difficult for France in time of peace, and alarming 



FRENCH EMPIRE. 233 

to her crowned neighbors. If Lord Cornwallis spoke by in- 
struction, England, in 1801, had no insuperable objection to 
Bonaparte as a monarch, though preferring the less enterprising 
and redoubtable Bourbons, But by their plots, and English 
hostilities, Bonaparte's life had become the pledge of French 
tranquillity and prosperity. War unavoidably increased execu- 
tive power, reducing other authority ; and when it became 
almost a mere question whether the weak, emigrant, vagabond, 
conspiring Bourbons, or the invincible victor in so many mighty 
battles, from Montenotte to Marengo, should defend France 
against them and their English belligerent supporters, state 
necessity seemed obvious and urgent that the hero, actually 
promoted to the head of the French nation, should, by more than 
transitory title and authority, be enabled to provide that the 
French Republic took no harm. 

Necessity of state and individual heroism rule nations. Jo- 
seph Bonaparte explains, presently in this chapter, how and 
why Napoleon defended transforming the French Republic into 
a monarchy; still, like the Roman Empire, called republic, 
(and why not ?) constructed on the revolutionary reforms of 
ruined royalty. Sovereignty of the people, equality of all 
men, toleration of all religions, armies and navies raised by 
conscription, universal blockade and invasion of England, to 
retaliate English unprovoked aggression by war, and by invasion 
to exterminate the French Republic, were among the radical 
republican convulsions which, from 1789 to 1799, roused the 
ever-restless, warlike, and ambitious French to the heroic 
phrcnzy preceding Bonaparte, which Bonaparte endeavored 
to appease, and to which perhaps, if left alone, France in peace 
might have succeeded. 

Inheriting and tranquillizing those commotions, Bonaparte, 
child and champion of democracy, was not the only creature 
of state necessity, but proud and haughty divine right, so called, 
also succumbed to like heroic ascendency. Since war provoked 
him to cast into the scales elective or popularised sovereignty, 
it has become almost as common as that called legitimate. The 
successor of Napoleon's greatest conqueror, who never held 
back when even Wellington and Blucher hesitated, the Empe- 



234 FRENCH EMPIRE. 

ror Alexander's successor, Nicholas, has for nearly a quarter 
of a century ruled Russia, not as next, but supplanting the 
lawful heir, and chosen to the throne. The Austrian Empire 
is in like manner provided with the present emperor ; and 
Spain with a queen, contrary to Spanish legitimacy. Are 
these usurper monarchs ? The revulsion which elected Dutch 
William in place of Scotch James dethroned in England, gene- 
rally deemed more traditionary than revolutionary, was more of 
an usurpation than that by which Bonaparte became emperor, 
whose accession was not more illegitimate than that of the pre- 
sent reigning family of Austria, beginning with Rodolph of 
Hapsburg. And to come nearer home, if Washington had 
been captured and sacrificed, would not America, prolific 
of so much European contestation of divine regal right, 
be consigned by European history to infamy, for rebellion 
begun by a mob of traitors ? Since his enormous despotism 
and terrific overthrow, Bonaparte is easily condemti-ed as 
usurper. But as either election or succession, his elevation not 
unexceptionable, was less turbulent or corrupt than many an 
election to the British parliament, or sometimes the American 
presidency. Elective chief magistracy insinuated its opposition 
to divine regal right from the time when Massillon preached 
before Louis XIV., that kings represent nations, inculcated by 
other royalists, till one of them, Americanised La Fayette, 
chose a middle-man, Duke of Orleans, to be king, with republi- 
can institutions, and expelled the absolute, inflexible monarch, 
insisting, by grace of God, to be Charles X. 

During a hundred years the Orleans family had been sepa- 
rating itself from the Bourbons by affecting, perhaps sincerely 
cherishing liberal sentiments. When Montesquieu, Voltaire, 
and Rousseau, promulgated novel and reformatory doctrines, 
they found patrons in Dukes of Orleans. The unfortunate 
head of that family, with whom Marie Antoinette quarrelled, 
nicknamed Philii^ Equality, who voted for the execution of 
his relation, Louis XVI., did but follow the footsteps of his 
forefathers. His son, King Louis Philippe, with his five sons, 
all, father and sons, educated in free principles, were born and 
bred harbingers of popular sovereignty. For more than a cen- 



FRENCH EMriRE — MOREAU. 235 

tury after the regency of the celebrated Duke of Orleans, 
France was prepared for the great changes in government, 
•vrhich in the last seventy years, by frequent, sudden and san- 
guinary revolutions, have uprooted ancient aristocracy and 
royalty. 

Prince Polignac, pardoned as one of the conspirators sent 
by the Count d'Artois from London, taken with George Ca- 
doudal and condemned in Paris, afterwards one of the Bourbon 
ambassadors in London, and the prime minister at Charles X.'s 
downfall by the revolution of 1830, Avhich placed Louis Philippe 
on the throne, was, as I have understood from high authority, 
at one time employed in England as a secret agent of the Em- 
peror Kapoleon there. Most of the old nobility solicited ser- 
vice under the Emperor and his monarchised brothers and sis- 
ters : most of the new, whom he made marshals and princes, 
and loaded with wealth, titles and honors, deserted him in his 
utmost need : humiliating degradation, altogether, and human 
nature, noble and ignoble. 

Moreau's banishment to, and long residence in this country, 
render his part of the plots for which Pichegru, Engliein, and 
Cadoudal suffered death, and by which Bonaparte was helped 
and hurried to the throne, almost an American story ; as Mo- 
reau's departure from America, in 1813, to join the English 
coalition against Napoleon, becomes strictly a portion of this 
historical sketch. Not guilty of conspiracy with the Bourbons 
to assassinate Bonaparte, or of the design to restore the Bour- 
bon king, Moreau was found guilty of conspiracy to overthrow 
the consular government and substitute himself as chief ma- 
gistrate of France ; dictator, he said ; for he, too, after per- 
forming the humblest function to overthrow the directory, and 
elevate Bonaparte, like him, would not condescend to i^lay the 
part of General Monk, to make a king, but aspired to be Dic- 
tator. Brave, indolent, sociable, upright and popular, ]\Ioreau, 
second in military renoAvn and favor to Bonaparte, was Avithout 
his ambition, imagination, or activity. Pichegru, under whom 
he served, and who appreciated his incapacity for all but mili- 
tary eminence, when Moreau drew back from the conspiracy 
to restore the ancient monarchy, contemptuously said, " that 



236 MOREAU. 

animal ! he too wants to reign, without sense enough to govern 
France for two months." Moreau's domestic conscience, as 
wives and mothers are sometimes called, Madame Moreau and 
her mother, Madame Hulot, of the Isle of France, were as 
restless, intriguing, and grasping, as he was supine and con- 
tent with common, if not sensual enjoyments. As a rival 
republican, Moreau took offence at Bonaparte's monarchical 
tendencies. His wife's mother complained that Madame 
Bonaparte kept her waiting, when Madame Hulot called 
at the Tuilleries, angrily declaring that she had no notion 
of dancing attendance on the First Consul's wife, who was no 
more than her equal, as Moreau and Bonaparte were but rival 
generals. Influenced by his wife and her mother, Moreau 
ceased to visit Bonaparte, and, for a year before his arrest, 
declined all the Consul's invitations and civilities ; spoke dis- 
paragingly of his measures, and ridiculed the attempts which 
Bonaparte declared were continually made to destroy him. In 
that temper Moreau became, in 1803, what the Duke of Or- 
leans was in 1830, the focus of discontent with the government, 
round whom there were enough of dissatisfied republicans and 
conspiring royalists to rally, as there were Bonapartists, with 
some few republicans, to rally round the Duke of Orleans. 

Condemned to two years' imprisonment, Moreau, like the 
Polignacs, Reviere, and others, was pardoned by the new Em- 
peror, as one of the earliest acts of his imperial policy, but on 
condition of banishment. Taken, by his own request, to the 
Spanish frontier, the victor of Hohenlinden closed his French 
career by declaring to the ofiicer in whose custody he was, 
that, if there should be war, and the Emperor wanted him, he 
had only to let him know, and " I give you my word of honor 
that I will return faster than I go." 

Moreau's reception in America, where he at first fixed him- 
self in Philadelphia, afterwards at Eobert Morris's former 
residence, Morrisville, on the Delaware, near Trenton, and 
finally in the city of New York, was flattering everywhere. 
The public welcomed him as one of the greatest generals of the 
age. The bar entertained him as bred to their profession be- 
fore he turned soldier. The numerous adversaries of Napoleon 



MOREAU. 237 

hailed liiin as an eminent republican escaped from a tj^ant. 
"Many of both parties in this country, including all the ad- 
mirers of England, together with not a few of those, like Jef- 
ferson, accused of French influence, felt and expressed great 
repugnance at Bonaparte's aggrandizement, which, during 
Moreau's American exile, seemed to become permanent, more 
and more growing and formidable. Royal attempts to assas- 
sinate him, from England, ceasing with Pitt's ministry (except 
the last one, against which Premier Fox warned Napoleon), 
the Bourbon clandestine agency in Paris, of which Royer 
Collard, Hyde de Nieuville and others were members, ceased 
to encourage hopes of restoration. Moreau, condemned almost 
to American naturalization, was finally, after eight years' irk- 
some exile, seduced, by his wife and the Emperor of Russia, 
into the service of the last coalition against Napoleon. She 
accompanied her husband to America. Hyde de Nieuville, 
one of the most consistent and faithful adherents of the royal 
cause, withdrew to America, and lived retired near Brunswick, 
New Jersey — the same respectable gentleman who was King 
Louis XVIII.'s minister at Washington, in 1818. Moreau, 
through de Nieuville's instrumentality, was at last prevailed 
upon, by IMadame Moreau, to take up arms, in Russian uni- 
form, against Napoleon. 

Fauehe Borel, another Bourbon agent, as early as 1807, per- 
suaded the Emperor Alexander that Moreau would readily join 
an effort at counter-revolution in France ; and accordingly the 
general was sounded on the subject. Declining Russian ser- 
vice, he said he had no objection to serve against France. In 
conversation with Gouverneur Morris, on the 10th of Novem- 
ber, 1807, after expressing his aversion to too much power in a 
republic, and to all absolute government, Moreau answered the 
objection that, in taking service in the United States, he might 
have to fight against France, saying, " France, by unjustly 
proscribing me, has cast me from her bosom; and having 
become a citizen of the place where I live, I have a right, in 
that quality, to fight against her, the same as you all have." 
With that sentiment a mercurial, Creole wife, much more 
anxious than her husband to change quiet republican America 



238 MOREAU. 

for gay, imperial Europe, finally succeeded in seducing Moreau 
to throw away all scruples, put on the Russian uniform, and 
draw his sword against the Emperor, whom he confounded with 
his country. The wife who thus beguiled him was a good- 
looking woman, much younger than her husband, with whom 
he acquired the considerable dowry they lived upon. Accom- 
plished in music, dancing, and other such attractions, soon, 
with female facility, learning to speak English, while her hus- 
band was several years in this country before he could speak a 
word ; and losing, as I believe they did, several children here, 
it was natural that she should pine for the enjoyments of a 
fitter theatre for her talents, where her unambitious husband, 
become a mere sportsman and idle convivialist, shooting, 
fishing, and feasting being his chief resources, had sunk into 
oblivion and obscurity. A restless female instigator succeeded 
in rousing him, by describing the object of their aversion, 
elevated upon a throne, surrounded by many more, married to 
an Emperor's daughter, and, by successive successful evolu- 
tions, continually raised higher and higher to that giddy 
and perilous pinnacle where the danger of downfal is most 
imminent. 

Napoleon, constant in all his attachments, domestic, ami- 
cable and political, seldom changed his ministers. And never 
warring with circumstances, which caused his being called a 
fatalist, he accepted and retained Talleyrand as Secretary of 
Foreign Affairs, having found him in that place on his advent 
to the consulate. There Talleyrand remained, throughout the 
consulate and empire, till detected in treachery ; when his dis- 
missal was arranged munificently, and with the least possible 
offence. To him succeeded Champagny, who was followed by 
Maret, and in 1812, Daru, a friend of Moreau. For, as Na- 
poleon was constant in his attachments, so he preferred talents, 
probity and good sense in a minister, to servility or professed 
adhesion, Daru, well known as a friend of Moreau, disap- 
proving his punishment, and desiring his restoration to France, 
was not, on that account, objectionable to the Emperor as sec- 
retary. During the fatal six weeks Napoleon lost at Moscow, 
Daru informed him that he had received a confidential letter 



MORE A U. 239 

from Mailamc Moreau, soliciting the secretary's intercession 
with the Emperor to permit her to visit France, in order to 
transact some pressing private business. The Emperor, aware 
of her restless, enterprising nature, refused permission. Next 
year, when Moreau's arrival at the allied head-quarters was 
announced, Napoleon reminded Daru of his request refused at 
the Kremlin the year before. Bernadotte also had been 
enlisted against Napoleon. The adroit and judicious Emperor 
Alexander intimated to the ambitious French crown-prince of 
Sweden that, peradventure, he might supersede Napoleon as 
Emperor of the French. Moreau, superadded by the Emperor 
Alexander's management, perhaps flattered himself that he too 
had a chance, in 1813, of becoming French chief magistrate, 
as in 1804 he attempted, by some new form of government. 
The Russian and general hope of Napoleon's enemies was that 
two generals so distinguished by talents and services as Ber- 
nadotte and Moreau, and so much beloved by French soldiery, 
might not be without influence in detaching the army from Na- 
poleon, or at any rate in dividing the military attachment with 
him. In all these arrangements, and thenceforward, the Em- 
peror Alexander was a great contriver and greatest actor. 
His invitation to Moreau,. presented through Hyde de Nieu- 
ville, was a letter remarkable for the delicacy and refinement 
which distinguished that gentlemanly monarch, whom Napo- 
leon called a handsome young man, cunning as a Greek of 
the lower empire ; as grasping of territory as Napoleon him- 
self; but who, in all the leading part he took in Napoleon's 
overthrow, exhibited admirable kindness of method, with 
sternest execution. "Aware of your sentiments," said his 
letter to Moreau, " and proposing to draw you near me, it 
gives me pleasure to assure you, formally, that my only aim 
is to render your lot as satisfactory as circumstances will per- 
mit, without, in any case, exposing you to put your conduct 
in opposition to your principles;" thus treating the French 
republican general's patriotism and politics with the nicest 
tenderness, when seducing him to put on Russian livery, to 
fight against the country to which his farewell was, " If 
wanted, at any time, for war, the Emperor has only to let 



240 EMPIRE. 

me know, and I will instantly return." Bernadotte's sar- 
castic salute to his French comrade in arms against France 
was, " Take care ; the French will never know the victor of 
Hohenlinden in Russian regimentals." The last time I saw 
him, just before he sailed under Russian escort, he was 
giving advice how to discipline our army, by mixing old 
soldiers with recruits. He died, it is said, smoking a segar. 
with a stoicism of which neither Napoleon nor Nelson was ca- 
pable. Some years afterwards, the present queen-dowager of 
Sweden, Desiree Clary, Bernadotte's widow, informed a gen- 
tleman from whom I have it, that Madame Moreau had told 
the queen how wrong it was for Joseph Bonaparte to stay so 
long in this half-civilized country, which the Creole widow of 
Moreau held in strong distaste. 

I have already contradicted the common English and Ame 
rican misapprehension, that Bonaparte, by force and fraud, 
usurped the empire. The famous pamphlet, published in 1800, 
entitled, "Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell and Bonaparte,'' 
ascribed to Lucien, and said to be written with a view of pro- 
moting Napoleon's coronation, was the work of Fontanes, an 
eloquent royalist, just returned from emigration ; and so far 
from acceptable to Napoleon, that it caused a diflFerence be- 
tween him and Lucien, which was not healed for some time. 
Weary of violent changes, anxious for repose, and used tc 
find it more under individual control than multitudinous, 
great numbers of the French desired Bonaparte for dynastic- 
ruler. Foreign monarchs in amity, foreign war with England, 
incessant plots, interior tranquillity, the spirit of the nation 
combined to favor his ambition. And that soared above mere 
personal aggrandizement ; to put himself on the basis of 
popular sovereignty, instead of the discredited royal family, 
and as testamentary executor of the revolution, found a great 
republican empire. Excess and overthrow render it easy to 
deny his sincerity, and denounce his design. But some of the 
greatest acts of tyranny commonly imputed to him, as enor- 
mities of his imperial despotism, were republican measures. 
Conscription, continental system, invasion of England, destruc- 
tion by fire of captured English merchandize, were all concep- 



EMPIRE. 241 

tions of the rcpuLlico.ns -wlio began the French Revolution, and 
laid the foundations of Napoleon's Empire; subdued and ex- 
terminated feudal aristocracy and ecclesiastical intolerance. 
Fourteen cardinals, in the basilisk of St. Peter's cathedral, 
at Rome, joined in a To Deum, chaunted for the downfal of 
the Pope, and restoration of the Roman Republic, to embrace 
all Italy. Two Popes, Pius VII. and Pius IX., have been so 
liberal as to be almost republican. Inflexibly conservative as 
Bonaparte was, detesting the Jacobins and dreading licentious 
democracy, he was sincerely bent on the great reforms of state 
and church, which, by republicans, are deemed essential to 
free government. His misfortunes resulted from what he 
would excuse as temporary departure from the principles 
which he avowed as the best. Far from any occasion for 
fraud and violence, all he had to do was to moderate vehe- 
ment popular tendency and impatience to call him Emperor, 
when felt as master ; to which, except by a few republicans. 
La Fayette and Carnot pleading American, which were deemed 
impracticable institutions for France, there was no opposition 
within, and which everything from abroad favored. Universal 
suffrage chose him. Neither as Consul nor Emperor had he 
any need to deal surreptitiously with that new and mighty 
element of public favor. Public functionaries, prefects of de- 
partments, electoral colleges, inhabitants of towns, peasantry — 
all rallied to his promotion. Those who deny that it was the 
will of the people are driven to the assumption that the mass 
are incapable of judgment. We have seen latterly, and won- 
derfully, the whole French nation again and again rally 
to the name of Bonaparte as their nearly unanimous and 
enthusiastic preference. Neither Consulate nor Empire was 
usurpation, but reformation, however eventually abused ; on 
both occasions by the will of the people. There was 
no need of seduction, intimidation, force, or fraud. Na- 
tional instinct and common sense indicated Napoleon as the 
best protector of every one's dearest rights, their property, 
religion, peace, honor and advancement ; as the man best 
disposed, and no monarch so able, to restore and pre- 
serve justice, order, equality, and even liberty. Popularity 
Vol. hi. — 1G 



242 EJIPIRE. 

immense, and almost immaculate, made him Consul and Em- 
peror. Masses of people, "with no motive but their own good, 
and most of them no selfish bias to mislead their instinct, 
never, by universal suffrage, reject the favorite who approaches 
them. 

How soon Bonaparte aspired to empire, when he began to 
dream of a crown, we do not exactly know ; but, according to 
his brother Joseph's testimony, it was always Napoleon's 
opinion that France required a monarch. A succession of 
victories, which at first must have surprised him as they did 
all others, gave him to understand that he was a conqueror ; 
and his ambition, blooming in Italy, might then have rested 
satisfied with military fame, had not conquests rendered him a 
founder — enemies, conspirators, and other accidents, an enor- 
mous ruler. When, in consequence of his first victories, Jo- 
seph made the treaty of Luneville with Austria, in February, 
1801, confirming that of Campo Formio, there were, in Eu- 
rope, five established republics, recognized by all nations — the 
French, Batavian, Helvetic, Ligurian and Cisalpine ; and so 
little jealousy or apprehension had Bonaparte of the Bourbon 
royal family, that he seemed to take pride in creating Louis 
of Bourbon Prince of Parma, King of Etruria; so proclaimed 
king on the 21st of March, 1801, and indebted for his crown 
to Bonaparte. Of his brother Napoleon's early predilection 
for monarchy, Joseph Bonaparte has thus testified, and vindi- 
cated his ascent to the French throne. "His proclamations 
to the army of Italy sufiiciently announced," says Joseph, 
" that, if Bonaparte arrived at power, he would establish a 
government that would not be a republic. On the 18th Bru- 
maire, the event was consummated. From that epoch dates 
the Napoleon monarchy, at first elective for a term of years, 
then for life, and finally hereditary ; modifications necessarily 
undergone. Moreau and Georges' conspiracy determined the 
declaration of inheritance. Consul for a time, a stroke of 
state policy might put him down ; for life, it could be done by 
an assassin. He took inheritance as a buckler. The agitation 
then would not be to kill him — it would be necessary to over- 
throw the state. There is the truth. The nature of things 



EMPIRE. 243 

tended to inheritance — it was forced." More than any other 
person in constant confidential communion with Napoleon ; in 
continual correspondence when separated ; more familiar than 
any other with his plans, thoughts and motives, that acknow- 
ledgment by Joseph, published to the world, is the highest evi- 
dence of Napoleon's uniform monarchical, but liberal and repre- 
sentative tendency. 

Monarchy, as designed by him, was what he deemed royalty 
reformed. I have, in my possession, a manuscript copy of 
what is entitled, " Project of Constitution of the Empire, dic- 
tated by the Emperor at St. Helena, the 10th of March, 1820;" 
of which the caption called General Disposition is, "The French 
Nation is constituted in a democratic monarchy, under the de- 
nomination of the French Empire." A legislature of two 
houses ; peers, hereditary or for life, appointed by the Em- 
peror; representatives elected by the people for five years, 
every tax-payer having the right to vote ; perfect equality, 
considerable liberty, a free press, religious toleration, and other 
liberal institutions are articles of this constitution. Something 
like the English government, but with a vast advance beyond 
it in the right of suffrage, was the constitution which Napoleon 
deemed best then, as there is every reason to believe, how- 
ever dictatorial and despotic he became. The Neapolitan 
government, as reformed by Joseph and Murat ; the Spanish, 
as settled by Joseph ; the Dutch, as established by Louis ; the 
Tuscan, as Eliza arranged it ; the Westphalian, as dictated by 
Napoleon himself to Jerome, were all in the same liberal spirit, 
and the latter with extensive published instructions by Napo- 
leon, when at the pinnacle of power. When Louis Philippe 
succeeded to the French throne, with monarchy meliorated by 
republican institutions, as La Fayette proposed, the English 
constitution was immediately reformed by considerable exten- 
sion of the right of suffrage. And those who consider uni- 
versal suffrage a right which government, cannot, by right, 
withhold from those who, in any way, contribute to its sup- 
port, will appreciate France in that great reform. France, for 
the last half century, the foremost nation, far in advance of 
England, and as prodigal of this, the greatest, if not the wisest 



244 EMPIRE. 

and justest liberty, as any of the freest of the American repub- 
lican states. Such might have been the French Empire, if, 
unmolested by foreign aggressions, reiterating belligerent coa- 
litions, royal conspiracies, and other provocations to at least 
temporary postponement of the kind of government Napoleon 
preferred, he had been suffered to exercise, in peace, the pro- 
digious activity of his mind, and indefatigable body, in the 
development of free institutions, territorial improvements, and 
industrial advantages ; instead of being many years challenged 
to war, and provoked to despotism, every year augmenting 
his power and indurating its force. Joseph's vindication of 
Napoleon's monarchy thus distinguished it from the Bourbon 
royalty. 

" The French monarchy had feudal rights, an exclusive and 
privileged nobility, venality of offices, official substitutions, par- 
liaments, convents, proprietary clergy, confusion of the state 
treasure with that of the prince. Did Napoleon establish all 
that ? He consecrated the liberty of individuals and of pro- 
perty, accessibility to all employments, political and civil 
equality of rights and taxes, freedom of worship, juries, civic 
acts of state, salaried ministers of worship, distinctions without 
privileges, separation of the public funds, and accountability. 
The Legion of Honor preceded the Empire ; but the decora- 
tions, instead of being spread over special and exclusive 
classes, were extended to all kinds of service, to all kinds of 
talents. There was a monarch, but he was emperor, not king. 
It was neither hazard nor caprice, nor puerile vanity, that led 
to taking one of those titles rather than the other. The im- 
perial constitutional monarchy was a monarchy because there 
was a monarch, but it was quite another thing from the royal 
French monarchy." 

The great result and residuum of all the trials of the French 
Revolution, from 1789 to 1849, have been reforms of govern- 
ment, however denominated, and by Avhomever ruled. Louis 
XVI. and Napoleon began and ended their supremacy by ap- 
proximations to free institutions. Louis XVIII. , bidding for 
the throne, offered to forego many royal privileges which 
Charles X. was instantaneously dethroned for attempting to 



EMPIRE. 245 

restore. Louis Philippe, constrained to begin by renouncing 
still more, "was banished for endeavoring to check the onAvard 
course of freedom to a republic, which all those five monarchs 
of France, Louis XVL, Napoleon, Louis XVIIL, Charles X., 
and Louis Philippe, were, perhaps unconscious but providen- 
tial instruments, to found and perpetuate, by universal suffrage, 
on the sovereignty of the people. Perfect equality, great dis- 
tribution of property, considerable local authority instead of 
entire centralization, religious toleration, many of the rights 
of freemen, were already French enjoyments and predilections, 
when Bonaparte was as much constrained as disposed to 
substitute reformed monarchy for abolished royalty. At his 
installation, in 1799, the government was republican in its 
legislative and executive branches. The Council of Ancients, 
and that of Five Hundred, contained large numbers of 
men pledged, by revolutionary acts, to republican establish- 
ments. Many in authority, throughout the country, and in 
the army, were republicans, who regarded, with suspicion, the 
recall of so many royalist emigrants, and disliked the concordat 
with the Pope, because it reinstated the clergy. Some, with 
La Fayette and Carnot, opposed the Fii-st Consul's obvious 
advance to hereditary authority, which it would have been dif- 
ficult, if not impracticable, probably, for him to compass 
without foreign wars, royal conspiracies, and other such stimu- 
lations of the aristocratic instinct of mankind. Without per- 
sonal liberty, the French were, to many purposes, republican 
freemen, and might have maintained Bonaparte as their repub- 
lican chief magistrate. 

During sixty consecutive years, monarchy and republicanism, 
vibrating by reactions, contested France, stimulating reforms 
in England and other countries of Europe ; while, at the same 
time, the stability of self-government, and security of property 
in America, influenced many European nations to adopt repre- 
sentative institutions. Contrary to Joseph's apology, however, 
vanity, not only Napoleon's own, but French national vanity, 
actuated him in transforming President Bonaparte into Em- 
peror Napoleon. What will posterity say of me, was his inces- 
sant thought : ambition his ruling and absorbing passion. If 



246 EMPIRE. 

merely selfish, his renown would have been greater without the 
dynasty to which he sacrificed himself and his family. A citi- 
zen, dying in peace, with universal benedictions, would have 
been more famous than the warrior, crowned and crushed as 
the enemy of mankind. The error of his inordinate ambition 
was a struggle to prolong power instead of perpetuate fame. 
His monarchy was of no use to himself, nor his dynasty to his 
family. The imperial despotism of Napoleon will for ever 
tarnish General and President Bonaparte's character. Still, 
comparison between him and Washington is altogether false, 
because no comparison can be made between French and 
Americans. Washington might have been as ambitious as Bo- 
naparte, to no purpose, in a country where a king would shock 
the traditions and instincts of nearly all the people. Repub- 
licanism in France was as strange as monarchy here. A 
French Washington would be as great an incongruity as an 
American Bonaparte. Man-worship is American as well as 
French : but not man as a monarch. In France, it is hard 
to suppose that man can be great, unless monarch. Wash- 
ington, less vain, more moderate, and truer than Bonaparte, if 
disposed to be king, could never have reconciled the American 
people to become his subjects. Bonaparte's probably sincere 
conviction that a monarch is indispensable for France, was also 
the judgment of a large portion of the best-informed Frenchmen. 
Not only education, but traditional freedom, enabled Americans 
to prize their own sovereignty ; while French popular instincts, 
however tending to equality and even liberty, had not been 
educated to self-government. After sixty experimental years, 
there and here, monarchy is impossible here, and republicanism, 
if possible, still problematical there. . It seems to American 
republicans, and to British freemen, that Napoleon's error 
and overthrow proceeded from hjs attempting a dynasty with 
insufficient liberty ; by which mistake two of his royal successors, 
Charles X. and Louis Philippe, also fell. Whether American 
republicanism or British freedom, in form, can ever peaceably 
prevail in France, their substance appears to be the only safe- 
guard against commotion : either popular sovereignty, by uni- 
versal suffrage, or frequent revolution, the alternatives. 



EMPIRE. 247 

Representative government is tlic impulse of the age. Mon- 
archs may remain, perhaps ; but, surrounded by numerous par- 
ticipants in authority, in what form administered by the respec- 
tive governors, may yet be for decision. But great reforms, 
prochiimed by British, American, and French revolutions, are 
accomplished, from which mankind will not go back to mediaeval 
institutions. Bonaparte, whether willing or otherwise, was 
among the great reformers ; and fell, striving in vain to recon- 
cile government as it will be with royalty as it had been. 

Still, contrary to the flood of malediction which overwhelmed 
him when his despotism broke down and ruin followed, Avas his 
dictatorship, as he excused tyranny, merely selfish ? Most of 
France and of Europe either encouraged or provoked it ; and 
Talleyrand, representing French aristocracy, and Fouche 
French democracy, also chief architects of his downfall. Sieyes, 
Cambaceres, La Fayette, Carnot, far-sighted and honest oppo- 
nents of the coronation, were, except La Fayette, equally 
honest, resolute, and clear-sighted opponents of his final abdi- 
cation, after fifteen years of false-glorious reign. Like the 
delusive capture of Moscow, which Bernadotte predicted at 
the moment of that immense triumph, was the first step of 
Napoleon's still mightier reverses — imperial coronation began 
the road to ruin. Not long after that imposing event. Napo- 
leon's genius for war achieved the admirable victory of Aus- 
terlitz, which his genius for eloquence embellished by the 
felicitous despatch or bulletin descriptive of the battle of the 
three emperors. His conquered and humbled futm-e father- 
in-law, seeking the conqueror in his tent, by the treaty of 
Prcsburg, on the 26th December, 1805, surrendered territorial 
conquests, which to most of Italy superadded much of Ger- 
many, to inflame the upstart emperor's feverish lust of aggran- 
dizement. Pitt, poorly consoled, not comforted, by the victory 
of Trafalgar, expired under those terrible discomfitm-es of his 
system. Fox followed him to the grave before he could per- 
suade either Napoleon or England to make peace. Napoleon's 
ninth campaign, in two months ci-ushing the third coalition 
raised by England against him, the Emperor of the French 
was emboldened to aspire, by the flatterers who surrounded 



248 BONAPARTE MARRIAGES. 

and the success that tempted him to surpass all modern mo- 
narchs, including the Emperor Charles the Fifth, with his 
thirty diadems, European, American, African, and Asiatic, 
and, as Emperor of the West, to become the modern Charle- 
magne ; the Napoleonian to surpass the Carlovingian dynasty. 
Then began that system of family marriages with royal 
houses, and coronations of nearly all the Bonaparte family, 
which brought odium and perdition on Napoleon's frustrated 
dynasty, closing with the disastrous catastrophe of his own 
repudiation of a childless good old wife, like himself represent- 
ing the sovereignty of the French people, to marry a foreign 
princess, in vain to gild popular by patristic legitimacy. In 
every one of those marriages, from that of Eugene Beauhar- 
nois, which Avas the first, to Napoleon's, which was the last, the 
Emperor violated laws, affections, and prejudices stronger than 
laws or contracts. Out of his conquests by the campaign of 
Austerlitz, surrendered at the treaty of Presburg, constructing 
kingdoms for the Electors of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, mak- 
ing them kings, and increasing the territories of the Grand 
Duke of Baden, the conqueror Emperor of the French mar- 
ried his wife Josephine's son, Eugene Beauharnois, to the new- 
made king of Bavaria's daughter Augusta ; for that purpose 
breaking her engagement to marry the heir of the Grand Duke 
of Baden. To that heir Napoleon married his wife Josephine's 
cousin, Stephania Beauharnois, now dowager Grand Duchess of 
Baden, in spite of his engagement to the princess of Bavaria, 
the reigning Grand Duchess of Baden's invincible repugnance 
to degrade her blood-royal by marriage with the vulgar blood 
of heroic Bonapartes and Beauharnois, who, by that marriage 
of Stephania, became nearly allied, not only to the reigning 
house of Baden, but to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, the 
King of Bavaria, and the legitimate king of Sweden, three 
reigning sovereigns, all married to daughters of the Grand 
Duchess of Baden, who therefore detested, despised and 
dreaded Bonaparte. Dissolving his brother Jerome's marriage 
with his American wife, Elizabeth Patterson, after they had a 
son, Napoleon compelled Jerome to marry Catharine, the 
daughter of the new King of Wurtemburg. By that time Ger- 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 249 

man royalty and aristocracy was burning ■\vitli scarcely smo- 
tlicrcd detestation of the alleged murderer of a Bourbon royal 
jM-ince, Duke of Enghein, and aggravated German inveterate 
prejudices of caste. Yet state necessity not only subjugated 
hosts of humiliated princes and nobles, but the Beauharnois 
marriages with the Bavarian and Baden families proved felici- 
tous, and the Bonaparte marriage with the Wurtemburg prin- 
cess outlived her royal family's aversion. 

Family coronations hastily followed royal marriages. One 
of the most foolish and contemptible of the Bourbon kings, 
Ferdinand of Naples, his odious wife ruled by the beautiful 
harlot Lady Hamilton, with her glorious paramour, Lord 
Nelson, Duke of Bronte, by English and Russian instigation, 
absurdly forfeited the Neapolitan throne, by provoking Napo- 
leon to expel them from it. Joseph had already declined that 
of Lombardy, when proffered by Napoleon, who was uncertain 
whether Joseph would accept that of Naples, which was next 
offered. Joseph had been a major in the army, when appointed 
by Napoleon colonel of the fourth regiment of infantry, sta- 
tioned with the troops at Boulougne, preparatory to the con- 
templated invasion of England. From that command he rose 
to be a brigadier-general, and, as the Emperor's lieutenant, 
entered the city of Naples, the 15th February, 1806, with 
40,000 French troops, headed by Massena, St. Cyr, and 
Regnier ; and, on the 30th March, was proclaimed King of 
the Two Sicilies. On the 15th of March, 1806, Murat was 
proclaimed Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves, who succeeded 
Joseph as King of Naples in 1808, when he was transferred 
by Napoleon to the kingdom of Spain. On the 5th June, 
1806, Louis Bonaparte was proclaimed King of Holland. In 
August, 1807, Jerome Bonaparte was made King of West- 
phalia. Eugene Beauharnois was already Viceroy of Italy, 
Eliza Bonaparte Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Pauline 
Duchess of Guastalla. To the seven monarchs in his family. 
Napoleon tried to add another, in the person of his step-son, 
Eugene Beauharnois, who would have been King of SAveden, 
but for his objection, and his wife's, to that transfer from the 
Viceroyalty oiF Italy. When the overture from Sweden was 



250 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

made to France, in 1810, for a king, instead of the lawful but 
eccentric and troublesome monarch of that kingdom, Berna- 
dotte, the brother-in-law of Joseph, got himself nominated, and 
when Eugene declined it, through Napoleon's assistance, was 
selected for that place. Napoleon and Bernadotte had so often 
and angrily quarrelled, that the Emperor said he would rather 
have a better Frenchman on the Swedish throne, and therefore 
proffered it to his step-son. But his wdfe did not choose to 
change her religion, nor Eugene to exchange Italy for Sweden, 
and Bernadotte was thereupon taken as the substitute. Had 
Napoleon's wishes prevailed, Eugene, as King of Sweden, and 
Lucien, as King of Portugal, would have been superadded to 
the other crowd of kings, extending from the extreme south 
to the extreme north of Europe, governing many of the finest 
countries. It was also Napoleon's wish to endow his mother 
wdth a principality, by creating her Princess of Corsica, which 
was prevented by her preference for domesticity with her 
children, residence at either Paris or Rome, and the modera- 
tion of her desires, not her son's, the Emperor. 

These monstrous mistakes of unscrupulous ambition were 
not altogether without feeling. Napoleon's heart misled 
his head in the selection of his brothers, instead of other 
instruments. Both Louis the Fourteenth as well as Louis 
Philippe furnished, the former an example, the latter an 
imitation, in their more successful attempts on the Spanish 
throne, where the descendants of Louis the Fourteenth's 
grandson yet reign, and the son of Louis Philippe is closely 
allied by marriage. But while Spain and Naples, as well as 
Westphalia, were all benefited by Bonaparte kings, great 
detriment to Napoleon resulted from his inordinate aggran- 
dizement, in unsuccessfully placing brothers on those thrones. 
Nothing but success can justify or excuse such ambition. 
And, except Jerome, every one of Napoleon's three other 
brothers revolted, Lucien and Louis forcibly, Joseph by strong 
remonstrances, against the Emperor. Brotherhood required 
and authorized declarations and acts of independence which 
other agents, in their stead, need not and probably would not 
have resorted to. Lucien Bonaparte was inflexibly opposed to 



EONAPARTE KINGS. 251 

any crown. When Le married' Lis second ■wife, the widow 
Joubenthou, as before-mentioned, in defiance of Napoleon's 
■resistance to that marriage, the brothers quarrelled, separated, 
and lived apart for several years. Lucien retired to Rome, 
where he was welcomed and favoured by Pope Pius the 
Seventh, who, as Bishop of Imola, had avowed sentiments 
almost as democratic as those of Lucien. In 1807, when Na- 
poleon was at Venice, Joseph, then King of Naples, on a visit 
to the Emperor, always conciliating, obtained the Emperor's 
consent to a private interview, requested by Lucien, in a letter 
from Modena to Joseph. At night, the Emperor's secretary, 
Meneval, conducted Lucien from the inn, where he was incog- 
nito, by private ways, to the Emperor's cabinet. They 
were together till near midnight, when Lucien left the apart- 
ment, his eyes red with tears shed in angry controversy 
between the two equally unyielding brothers. Napoleon 
warmly urged Lucien to renounce his wife, for whom splendid 
provision should be made, and return to France, whence Napo- 
leon would place him on the throne of Portugal. Lucien per- 
emptorily and passionately refused a throne, on condition that 
he should renounce the wife by whom he then had several 
children. With deep emotion, and eyes inflamed with tears, 
as he left the Emperor's room, Lucien said to Meneval, that 
nothing should induce him to sacrifice his family, or forego his 
independence, and that he then left his brother Napoleon, pro- 
bably, for ever. The Emperor, still hoping to prevail on 
Lucien to marry a princess, and mount a throne, charged both 
Talleyrand and Fouche to endeavour to induce him to consent. 
But so indignantly averse was Lucien, that, when Napoleon 
intimated that the handsome widow Lucien married was not 
as virtuous as she was handsome, Lucien is said to have 
fiercely retorted, "And, pray, how virtuous was the widow 
you married?" 

At that angry midnight interview. Napoleon, however, got 
Lucien's consent to allow his daughter Charlotte to be mar- 
ried to the Prince of Asturias, then soliciting a wife of the 
Bonaparte family. Charlotte was accordingly taken from 
Italy to Paris, preparatory to her marriage with Ferdinand 



252 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

YII., but finally declined the royal match, returned to her 
father, and married the Italian prince Gabrielli. Pope 
Pius the Seventh created Lucien's estate, called Canino, 
near Kome, a principality, where Lucien remained, estranged 
from Napoleon, and speaking contemptuously of his imperial 
follies, as he called them. When the Emperor repudiated 
Josephine, to marry another wife, alarmed by that extreme 
transaction, Lucien fled from the possibility of being himself 
forcibly married to some princess. With the Emperor's per- 
mission, which he solicited, Lucien sought an asylum in Ame- 
rica, where alone he would be safe from the possibility of his 
being forced to mount a throne. On the 5th August, 1810, 
embarking with his family for this country, he was driven by 
a storm on the coast of Cagliari, where the King of Sardinia 
was too fearful of Napoleon's displeasure to let his disobedient 
fugitive brother even land. Putting to sea again, Lucien's 
vessel was taken by an English cruiser to Malta; whence, 
after some months' detention, he was conveyed to England. 
Landed at Plymouth, the 18th December, 1810, he was suf- 
fered, as a prisoner at large, to establish himself at Tomgrave, 
near Ludlow, where he spent the four last years of Napoleon's 
empire, in literary retirement. In April, 1814, the treaty of 
Paris set him free, when he returned to Rome, welcomed as 
usual by the Pope. While in England, he completed his poem 
called Charlemagne, an epic in twenty-four books, of which I 
have a copy, presented by Joseph. 

Louis Bonaparte's aversion to the throne which Napoleon 
compelled him to mount was as marked as Lucien's. His bro- 
ther, by whom he was brought up, compelled him to marry 
Hortensia Beauharnois, when Louis's aff'ection was avowed for 
her cousin Lapagerie. Four years after that event, Avhich Louis 
never ceased to deplore as worse than any mis-alliance, giving 
rise to continual alienation between him and his brother's step- 
daughter, and suspicions of her amours with other men, Louis 
was commanded by the Emperor to assume the royal sceptre of 
Holland, changed from a republic to a kingdom, for the better 
enforcement of Napoleon's continental system, by which, un- 



BONAPAIITE KINGS. 253 

a]ile to reach England on land, or to cope 'witli her at sea, he 
^vas to conquer the sea ashore. Louis, professing his antipathy 
to that suhserviency, to all wars as barbarous, and to his pleas- 
ing -wife as odious, was nevertheless proclaimed King of Holland, 
the 5th June, 180G, with undisguised insubordination to his 
imperial brother's mandate ; on the 15th of that month and 
year, took possession of his royal palace at the Hague, and 
soon after lost the elder of his two sons, who died of the croup, 
heir-presumptive to the Napoleon throne. By patriotic, con- 
scientious, and wise performance of his duties as King of Hol- 
land, reducing the taxes, economizing the expenses, developing 
the commerce, mitigating the penal code, and other im- 
provements, Louis rendered himself welcome to his Dutch 
subjects. But by extending their commerce, which interfered 
with the continental system, he offended the Emperor ; who, 
after several fruitless complaints, sent for King Louis to Paris, 
personally reproached his disobedience, and threatened to oc- 
cupy Holland with French troops, in order to enforce the ex- 
clusion of English commerce and manufactures. Louis's reply 
was, that, as soon as the first French soldier set foot in Hol- 
land, he would have the dikes cut, inundate the country, 
drown the French invaders, abdicate the crown, and leave the 
kingdom. Soldiers, under Oudinot, and M. Serrurier, after- 
wards French minister in this country, being sent to Holland, 
as imperial charge d'affaires to execute Napoleon's orders, on 
the 1st of July, 1810, King Louis abdicated the throne in 
favour of his oldest son, retired into Austrian territory, 
and afterwards to Gratz, in Styria, where he remained, under 
the assumed title of Count of St. Leu, living, like Lucien, in 
literary seclusion, till Napoleon's disasters in Russia, when 
Louis tendered his services to the Emperor, in any way in 
which, with his dilapidated health, they could be rendered 
useful. 

Louis, most of his life a valetudinarian, mortified and cha- 
grined by marriage with a handsome, accomplished, and 
• attractive woman, and still more by bis deportation to a 
throne, sickly, proud, querulous, honest, humane, conscien- 
tious, and uncompromising, brought up by his brother Napo- 



254 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

leon, who assumed over him parental authority, to which Louis 
reluctantly submitted, always restive under his imperious 
brother's yoke, solitary and devotional, sought consolation 
in literary pursuits. While a youth with Napoleon, in Egypt, 
his letters, some of which were captured and published, 
were remarkable for their benevolent spirit. At Gratz, 
after his abdication, he published a novel called Maria, de- 
scriptive of Dutch manners, and of his relish for the plain, 
frugal, manly character of the Hollanders ; also, a Memoir 
on Versification, and an Essay on that subject ; an opera 
called Ruth ; and a tragedy, Lucretia, in blank verse. After- 
wards, at Florence, in 1828, he published another collec- 
tion of poems. But his best-known work is a Vindication of 
Napoleon from the aspersions of Walter Scott ; in which Louis 
deplores the fame of all conquerors. With extreme but 
sincere horror of their renown, he declares, that he cannot 
conceive how reasonable beings can employ their short-lived 
existence, instead of loving and helping each other, and pass- 
ing through life as gently as possible, only in mutual destruc- 
tion, as though inexorable time did not perform that task fast 
enough. In another of his publications, Louis declares that 
fulfilment of duty was the invariable rule of his conduct; 
striving to harm none ; sacrificing his happiness, tranquillity, 
and reputation, to that primary motive of man's being. In 
sour, unhealthy independence, escaping from a throne and 
charming wife, Louis Bonaparte spent the residue of his pecu- 
liar life in literature and devotion. Yet, notwithstanding his 
aversion to and desertion of the Dutch throne, he claimed it 
as his son's right, when, in 1814, the French were finally 
expelled from Holland, and the Dutch people ofiered the crown 
to their former stadtholder, the Prince of Orange. Louis pro- 
tested against King William's coronation, insisting that by his 
(Louis's) abdication in favor of his son, the crown was lawfully 
that son's, by better right than William's, given by the people ; 
a pretension apparently inconsistent with Louis's whole life, 
and all Bonaparte assertion of popular sovereignty. 

The self-willed stuff, which Napoleon called his sister Caro- 
line's independent spirit, he found an obst,.cle to his plans in 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 255 

nearly all his family; in bis mother, his sister Pauline — in 
his brothers Lucien and Louis emphatically. Joseph refused 
tlie kingdom of Lombardy, reluctantly accepted that of Spain, 
frequently and sharply remonstrated with Napoleon against 
his interference there, and strove to govern as King of Spain, 
not as Viceroy of the French Emperor. Fraternal discord 
between the French Emperor and Dutch King is curious proof 
of the mixture of affection with ambition in Napoleon's ag- 
grandizement ; suffering his heart to lead his head in the 
selection of vassal kings. Alarming all mankind by the enor- 
mity of his empire, he fondly but unwisely stationed at its 
outposts those who, to be respected by their subjects, felt, and 
were not afraid to show, independence of their imperial con- 
stituent, and preference for their own dominions. A Dutch 
king for Holland, or a French king, provided that he was not 
a Bonaparte, might have been the Emperor's willing viceroy, 
subservient, anxious to obey his commands, and merit his ap- 
probation. A brother's palpable policy was to convince his 
subjects that their monarch was their patriotic chief, not ano- 
ther distant monarch's obsequious instrument. Napoleon must 
have found any deputies more subordinate than the brothers 
he chose for his occasional kingdoms. When apprised of Louis' 
flight from Holland, the Emperor shed tears of passionate dis- 
appointment. "Think," he exclaimed, "of the brother whom 
I educated out of my lieutenant's slender pay, with whom I 
shared my mattress, disobeying and deserting me !" Chan- 
ning, Emerson, and other mere American echoes of British 
often absurd misapprehension, denounce as selfishness what 
Avas but natural weakness, in the great dictator, who loved 
power of all things, but loved his family too. 

Louis, an ardent lover of peace, conscientiously bound by 
his coronation oath to serve Holland, flattered himself that he 
could make terms with England ; and sent Labouchere, a re- 
spectable Dutch merchant, to London on that errand, Avith the 
Emperor Napoleon's consent, Avho made repeated efforts and 
overtures for peace, which England always rejected. Annexa- 
tion of Holland to France was the result. The Dutch national 
deputies being consulted, declared that it was better for Hoi- 



256 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

land to form part of France, if constrained to support the 
continental system, than to remain an independent nation de- 
prived of maritime commerce. The Emperor Napoleon's official 
letter to his brother. King Louis, on that occasion, is one of the 
most remarkable specimens of family affection, imperial logic, 
and national policy. " Your majesty, mounting the Dutch 
throne, forgot that you are French, strained all the springs of 
your reason, and tortured the delicacy of your conscience, to 
persuade yourself that you are Dutch. Dutch, well disposed 
to the French, have been neglected or persecuted ; those favor- 
able to England promoted. Your majesty has misconceived 
my character, my kindness and forbearance towards yourself. 
I insist on the interdiction of all commerce and communication 
with England, a fleet, an army, and abolition of all privileges 
of nobility contrary to the constitution which I drew myself for 
Holland. Your majesty will find a brother in me, if you are a 
Frenchman. But if you forget community of country, you 
must not take it amiss that I forget ties of nature. Annexa- 
tion of Holland to France is best for France and Holland, and 
most injurious to England." — The continental system, so called, 
ascribed by most English and Americans to Napoleon, was not 
his device, but part of the powerful republican policy which he 
inherited from the revolution ; obvious and natural continental 
counter-action of British insulated commercial and manufactur- 
ing aggrandizement ; which convinced the Emperor of Eussia, 
on his visit to England, in 1814, that, if thoroughly enforced, 
it must have compelled Great Britain to make peace ; and whose 
revival, since Napoleon's overthrow, demonstrates its republican 
and imperial wisdom. Louis Bonaparte's honest and invincible 
maintenance of the interests of his Dutch subjects, provoking 
the annexation of Holland to the French Empire, is commonly 
set down as one of the unjustifiable acts of Napoleon's bound- 
less rapacity. My argument is less his justification than his 
description. The policy of the continental system I have but 
cursorily touched, merely to explain it, more to describe its 
supposed, but who was not its real author. For its effectual 
enforcement Holland was indispensable. It was, in Napoleon's 
management, like our indefinite embargo devised by President 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 257 

Jefferson, a weapon, not for M-ar, but to prevent or put a stop 
to its sufferings, by peace. In the resilient absorption of Hol- 
land by France, the parts performed by Louis and Napoleon 
Bonaparte, grossly misrepresented and much misunderstood, 
have been dwelt upon in this sketch, however, as characteristic, 
not political rectifications: 

Jerome's American marriage was said to be the cause of his 
exclusion from succession to the empire founded by Napoleon. 
As before mentioned, Pope Pius VII. refusing to sanction 
Jerome's divorce from Miss Patterson, the Emperor, by what 
many of his confidential advisers deemed sovereign authority, 
dissolved his brother's marriage. George the Third's dissolv- 
ing, by that said to be royal privilege, the marriage of his 
youngest son, the Duke of Sussex, Avith Lady Augusta Mur- 
ray, was quoted as a precedent ; and many other acts of simi- 
lar power. But for Jerome's exclusion from the succession, 
and had it remained in force after Napoleon's last abdication, 
and after the death of his son by Maria Louisa, Jerome's 
American son, next after the present President of France, 
might become entitled as successor to the French throne. 
Nor would the grandson of a Baltimore merchant, in the 
drama) of amazing Bonaparte events, be more foreign to the 
scene than the grandson of a merchant of Marseilles. Some 
of the Emperor's flatterers, and among them our fellow-citizen 
Talleyrand, held, however, American connexion in peculiar dis- 
taste. Joseph showed me a letter from Talleyrand to Napo- 
leon, dissuading him from violent or arbitrary measures to 
break up Jerome's American marriage, and counselling gentler 
proceedings with the delinquent young prince ; which charac- 
teristic letter flattered the Emperor's vanity by an aristocratic 
sarcasm at the American match, somewhat, as I recollect them, 
in these terms : " Not, sire, that I advise your majesty to sub- 
mit to the transatlantic connexion, for I can imagine few 
greater domestic annoyances than twenty or thirty American 
cousins." 

In August, 1807, Jerome's atonement for the American 
marriage, and obsequious submission to his imperial brother, 
were signalised by marrying the King of Wirtemburg's daughter 

A^OLrilL— IT 



258 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

The wedding was celebrated at Paris, with great splendor, in 
the midst of a violent thunder-storm, striking the Tuillerics, 
which, like the calamitous occurrences at the wedding of the 
last Queen and first Empress of France, seemed portentous of 
times of trouble. Jerome's princely wife, however, handsome 
and excellent, took her upstart divorced husband for better, 
for worse, for richer, for poorer, with admirable constancy; 
and, throughout a life of vicissitudes, from royal splendor to 
painful destitution, performed, to the last, every duty with 
heroic feminine virtue. After her husband's degradation by 
his brother's downfall, the King of Wirtemburg's daughter 
resisted all the harsh efforts of her own royal family to sepa- 
rate her from her husband, with a constancy which he had not 
evinced when submitting to be divorced from the humbler 
American wife, to whom he was as lawfully married. 

The constitution which Napoleon dictated for Jerome's king- 
dom of Westphalia is too memorable a proof of the liberal pro- 
clivity of their progressive age, countervailing the Emperor's 
military despotism, not to deserve to be incorporated with any 
account of him. A kingdom, called Westphalia, was con- 
structed for Jerome in part of that Hessian portion of Ger- 
many whose prince, during the war of the American Revolu- 
tion, supplied hirelings in arms to subdue transatlantic inde- 
pendence : an ephemeral kingdom, which soon vanished, to be 
replaced by the most flagrant of the German petty despotisms. 
From the towering eminence of his vastest empire. Napoleon 
prescribed to his youngest brother a written constitution for 
the kingdom of Westphalia, strongly marked with the popular 
spirit of American institutions, which, whether voluntarily 
or involuntarily, the mightiest European monarch was one of 
the greatest instruments to introduce and establish. In that 
tone of absolute command, which, if not part of his nature, 
had become habitual with Napoleon, so as to be stronger than 
nature, Jerome was directed to " convoke the deputies of his 
kingdom, half noble, half plebeian ; keep the third estate 
always a majority ; in your ministries, cabinets, if possible, in 
your appellate tribunals, in your administrations, let the greater 
number of persons you employ not be nobles ; that system will 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 259 

go right to the heart of Germany ; and never mind, though it 
annoys the other class. Do not aifect to raise up the third 
estate, but take, for a principle avowed, to choose talents, 
wherever they are. Adopt, at once, the Code Napoleon. 
Your throne will be founded truly and only on the confidence 
and love of the people. What all the German people impa- 
tiently desire is, that persons not noble, but with talents, shall 
have an equal right to consideration and employment ; that all 
sorts of servitude and of intermediate connexions between the 
sovereign and the lowest of bis people should be abolished. 
The benefits of the Code Napoleon, and public trials by juries, 
will be distinctive characteristics of your monarchy, on whose 
effects I count more for its establishment and extension than 
the greatest \dctories. The people must enjoy liberty, equality, 
and happiness unknown to the other people of Germany. Such 
government will be a stronger barrier for you against Russia 
than fortified places or French protection. What people would 
wish to return under the arbitrary rule of Russia, after tasting 
the benefits of a wise and liberal administration ? The people 
of Germany, those of France, of Italy, and of Spain, desii-e 
equality and liberal ideas. In the many years that I have 
been conducting the affairs of Europe, I have had occasion to 
be convinced that the grumbling of the privileged is contrary 
to general opinion. Be a constitutional king, which, if even 
the reason and lights of the age were not enough, in your po- 
sition, good policy would direct." 

Thus created, crowned and regulated, Jerome established 
himself at Cassel ; another not unconscious but voluntary 
agent of the freedom which, from France and an Emperor, 
was spreading throughout all Europe, precursor of, at any rate, 
representative, and perhaps republican government. King 
Jerome was recognised as a constitutional monarch by all 
the powers of Europe, except England — especially by the Rus- 
sian Emperor, concealing his annoyance at the erection of the 
kingdom of Westphalia. As in Naples, and in Spain, Napo- 
leon and Joseph, so Jerome founded liberty and equality in 
Westphalia, where the younger brother governed with good 



260 BONAPARTE KINGS. 

sense, establishing useful institutions, and constructing monu- 
mental embellishments. 

In Naples, in Spain, in Germany, wherever Napoleon en- 
throned his brothers, they were, each one of them, and his two 
reigning sisters likewise, much better rulers than the monarchs 
they supplanted. And, while Napoleon's ambition was the 
leading motive for their enthronement, yet family attachment 
was also an amiable but fatal motive. The policy which builds 
and enlarges empires, which necessitates, and thereby warrants 
Great Britain to subdue hundreds of millions in India, Russia 
to incorporate Poland, Austria to annex Hungary and parts 
of Italy, and this pacific republic the vast dominions already 
annexed, by purchase and conquest, to. its Union, that policy 
may better justify Napoleon's occupation of Spain, or invasion 
of Russia, than his attempts can be vindicated to establish, at 
once, so many brothers and sisters on more than half a dozen 
thrones. No acts of despotic aggrandizement were so inju- 
rious to him as those domestic weaknesses. The Bonaparte 
family ruined the Napoleon dynasty. For one and the same 
household to mount the thrones of France, Spain, Naples, 
Holland, parts of Germany and Italy, as so many separate 
monarchs, was monstrous and insufierable violence to all esta- 
blished ideas of balanced power, and shocked the common 
sense of Europe altogether. It was, moreover, as contemptible 
as it was formidable. Aristocracy sneered, royalty revolted at 
sudden upstarts, whom no power, pomp, or talents, could save 
from even popular contempt. Not only did the pettiest princes 
look down on them, but they were obliged to look up to the 
pettiest descendants of princely ancestral families. Military 
subjugation might dethrone and intimidate, but it could not 
reconcile people to novel installations so numerous, of whom 
every, and even one, was extremely difficult of acceptance. 
The principle of legitimate succession, by primogeniture, to 
.thrones and possessions, is a reasonable method for prevent- 
ing controversy and civil wars, like last wills and testa- 
ments, which ages sanction. To tread such traditions under 
foot, at once, by the substituted principle of elective right, 
hard to be adopted by one nation, when asserted for six or 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 261 

seven cliicf magistrates all at once, and then coupled T^-itli the 
exploded hereditary rule, appeared irrational, alarmed predi- 
lections, was displeasing to the common people. Napoleon 
was obliged to adopt election as the basis of his own empire ; 
and novel methods for all the kingdoms, dukedoms, royalties 
and aristocracies he established by great changes, proclaimed 
as reforms, which, tending to overthrow absolute, introduce a 
representative government. But for a Bonaparte dynasty 
to force, all at once, any novelty on several countries, for the 
advancement to royalty of seven brothers and sisters, was an 
undertaking unexampled, much more disturbing of old habits 
than revolution in any one of those countries. The enchant- 
ment of Napoleon's exploits and talents, together with the state 
of France, reconciled that nation not only to submission to his 
sway, but also, perhaps, to perpetuate it by substituting his 
family for one born to rule them. But what had Joseph done 
to entitle him to the Sicilian or the Spanish thrones, on both 
of which he was forced by French armies ? Or Louis, who was 
by like means, and almost against his own will, seated on the 
Dutch throne ? or Murat, or Eliza, or Caroline, or Jerome, in 
German grand-duchies, Neapolitan and German kingdoms ; all 
conquered for them by Napoleon ; all but satellites of his 
orb ? Neither circumstances nor reason warranted, nothing 
but force effected, their ascension to five or six foreign thrones, 
of which they were usurpers. The simple sagacity of mother 
wit, like animal instinct, truer than reason, warned their illi- 
terate mother to foretell that such contrivances would not end 
well. And the also but little educated American Empress, 
however enamoured of regal and aristocratic splendor, con- 
fessed inexplicable apprehension that, from that immense 
elevation, there was imminent danger of a fall. The whole 
Spanish people unanimously revolting against Joseph, Louis's 
.flight from Holland, and Lucien's escape from Italy, Je- 
rome's Westphalian kingdom provoking the Russian war, 
and Murat's desertion of Napoleon at the crisis of his fate, 
all proved the fatal mistakes by which, whether from family 
affection, or selfish ambition, he forced so many nations 
to submit to his brothers and sisters as their illegitimate mo- 



262 NOBILITY. 

narchs. He miglit plead, "with truth, that the present reigning 
house of Hapsburg began to rule much of Germany with no 
older or stronger right than his to make France his hereditary 
empire ; that Louis XIV., in spite of all Europe in arms to 
prevent it, established his grandson on the Spanish throne ; 
and that William III., by revolution, supplanted the royal 
family expelled from the English throne. But those were all 
individual, and two of them royal, instances of one ruler, by 
force or chance, seated on the throne of one nation. Never, 
before, was the attempt made by arms to compel many nations 
of Europe to accept several members of one family as their 
hereditary monarchs all at once. 

As a necessary consequence of Napoleon's French Empire, 
an aristocracy was constituted, an imperial nobility, baseless, 
transient, and incongruous with aristocratic vitality. A 
throne, mounted sword in hand by one of the people, by 
their election, but no other sovereignty than popular basis, 
must be precarious of tenure. Has there ever been such a 
one in modern Europe ? Dynasties have been changed. But 
when Louis XIV. put his grandson on the Spanish throne, and 
when Parliament elected William III. to the English throne, 
there were royal pretensions and connexions to give color of 
right. Before Bernadotte became King of Sweden, he was 
familiarized to the nation as their prince and heir-presumptive 
to the crown, and to all Europe as successful leader of their 
combined armies against Napoleon. A conqueror may capture 
a throne, peradventure keep and transmit it in his family. But 
to create a class without privileges, as the French Emperor 
attempted, to endow them with imposing titles and gorge them 
with enormous wealth, without any power but that of wealth, 
or any distinction but title, will not make an aristocracy. 
Wealth alone, however powerful, will not ennoble; nor mere 
title, without both wealth and power. To render men noble, 
they must have privileges. Give the vanquisher of Napoleon 
at Waterloo the ten millions bestowed on Welhngton, legalize 
their exclusive possession and transmission to an heir by entail 
and primogeniture, and make him, with his heir, hereditary 
lawgivers, with all the attributes and immunities of legislation, 



NOBILITY. 263 

and Arthur Welleslcy, not only the father, but the son, would 
be as eminent and dignified without as with title. There would 
be no occasion to call him Duke : for it is not the title, but 
wealth and privilege perpetuated in exclusion of other people, 
that ennoble a class unknown to antiquity, and the creation of 
feudality. When Napoleon abolished that, with their privi- 
leges, he created a short-lived, baseless class, like his family 
kings, militant with his own method of government, with his 
dynasty, and with the nature of things. 

His consular amnesty recalled nearly all the emigrant aris- 
toci'acy ; of whom the imperial court captivated from the for- 
gotten Bourbons most of the few still abiding their forlorn 
chance. Josephine, foremost to surround her person with 
ancient nobility, knew, what her husband's secretary Meneval 
says, that the Emperor's inclination for them proceeded from 
the sympathy he always felt for classes, the antiquity of whose 
services, as well as their good education, pointed them out 
particularly to his attention. He thought them more inte- 
rested in the order of things wdiich he founded than republi- 
cans, always inimical to the principles of his administration, 
and dreaming an ideal government. He considered himself as 
having taken the succession of the monarchies which preceded 
his, but not their maxims. That was one of the motives of his 
partiality for Talleyrand, as a leading intermediate in the work 
of fusion and conciliation between the old nobility and new. 
He made some of the old dukes senators. For the foreign re- 
lations, he considered that ambassadors taken from the ancient 
castes would better suit courtly intimacies, and, by affiliating 
with the freemasonry of aristocracy, be of great advantage to 
him. With these inclinations of the Emperor, the poverty, 
vanity, and habits of the old nobles coincided. In a short 
time there was not a French old noble family, some of whose 
members were not in the livery of the new court, insinuating 
themselves into numerous places at the capital and in the pro- 
vinces, born, as they believed, to live without labor, on public 
bounty. The small remnant of still Bourbon-adhering and 
exiled royalists were glad to see their children taking office 
under the Empire. The French minister in this country, Ser- 



264 NOBILITY. 

rurier, a man of the republic, without ancestry, had for secre- 
tary the son of an ancient duke, Caraman, adhering to the 
Bourbons, another of "whose sons was serving the Emperor in 
arms. 

Thus inclined himself, urged by his wife, who was its first 
great victim, and encouraged by the aristocracy, who more 
than reciprocated his caresses, Napoleon attempted a compo- 
site order, on a perilous basis. His meddlesome governance, 
intruding in every household, regulating ladies' dress, gentle- 
men's entertainments, and the marriages of both, anciently 
royal, was not perhaps so erroneous, in the essayed fusion and 
consolidation of the old with a new nobility, as his attempt to 
establish unprivileged and merely titular opulent aristocracy. 
Equality was carried to strange extremes, when the barefooted 
tailor-boy, who ran Joseph's errands in Corsica, Sebastiani, was, 
by authority, married to a daughter of the Duke of Coigny, 
and the issue of that union to a son of the Duke of Choiseul, 
Praslin, whose tragic murder of his wife was one of its results. 
Granting, however, the policy of the monarch's marrying his 
military upstart celebrities to the daughters of ancient nobles, 
it was a capital mistake to create an aristocracy without pri- 
vileges, because it induced all nobles, new and old, to combine 
for the restoration of a master who Avould restore their privi- 
leges, and uphold them altogether as a privileged class. The 
new nobles were gorged with enormous wealth, taken, with 
most of their titles, from the inexhaustible stores of the foreign 
conquests Napoleon made by their instrumentality. The old 
nobles were mostly impoverished by confiscation, banishment, 
and depreciation of property. Inimical to each other, what they 
both best agreed in, was desire, the old to be restored to former 
privileges, the new to be invested with the like. New and 
old, welded by Napoleon's iron grasp into one heterogeneous 
and invidious mass, they were altogether opposed to his novel 
monarchical system. They wanted a master to ennoble them 
as before the revolution. Napoleon's retrenchment of noble 
privilege was a two-edged sword, which struck at his dynasty, 
and for the eventual alternative of either a Bourbon king or a 
republic. All new nobility must be more or less socially insig- 



NOBILITY. 265 

nificant ; the old look down on them, the community hardly 
look up to them. The new imperial nobles were patented with 
splendid old titles — dukes, counts, barons. The old nobles 
were deprived of their titles : in order to get one, they had to 
take the Emperor's grant, which sometimes degraded a duke 
to a count, or even a baron. Furthermore, as all wanted pri- 
vileges, so all desiderated splendid repose. They did not like 
to be continually fighting for their fortunes, their titles, and 
their lives, in order to maintain on the throne of France a 
monarch who denied them all the privileges they coveted, and 
required them to expose themselves, not only for his dynasty, 
but those of six brothers and sisters, on as many foreign 
thrones. They longed for a monarch who would protect them 
privileged in peace and splendor. The old by ancestry, the 
new by wealth, were rendered so independent of the Emperor, 
that nearly all the old, and many of the new, were prompt 
to desert their benefactor in the hour of his need. Savary, 
Duke of Rovigo, one of the new, testifies that the new nobility 
were more faithless than the old. The new, nearly all the 
most prominent being military, may have been sooner put to 
choose between themselves and the creator of their aristocracy. 
Still, if the fact be as averred by Savary, it tells favorably to 
those educated to honor and truth, and discreditably to the 
ignoble ennobled. Although in all the wars he waged, the 
Emperor might insist that he was not the aggressor, yet his 
soldier aristocracy were tired of war. What more could they 
get by it ? The old aristocracy could not vie in magnificence 
or favor with the new ; the new were eclipsed by the old, in 
all that homage bestowed on respectable ancestry in all coun- 
tries and ages. To reconcile equality with nobility is impossi- 
ble. Napoleon swerved from the people, when he crowned 
hitnself, with nearly all his family, and put coronets on hun- 
dreds of his followers : else the people would not probably 
have cooled to him. And when, without their cordial support, 
he appealed to that of his enthroned family and ill-contrived 
aristocracy, Murat, on one of the thrones, INIarmont, a semi- 
noble, endowed with one of the imperial dukedoms, were the 
first to betray their creator, and ensure his overthrow. Ills 



266 XOBILITY. 

monarchy, his family, and his aristocracy, combined to destroy 
him more fatally than his tyranny. From the execution of 
the Duke of Enghein, which precipitated his coronation, and 
the victory of Austerlitz, which emboldened him to enthrone 
his whole family, with the invariable and prodigious successes 
that followed the further creation of his compounded aristo- 
cracy, during eight years of vast aggrandizement, from 1804 
to 1812, the true glory, the real power, and the happiness of 
the dictator, decreased ; dread of him was universal, but no 
longer love. 

As citizen, general, and consul, Bonaparte, notwithstanding 
hostile traduction, was really not only the greatest, but the 
brightest and purest of potentates, and might have lived and 
died with that character. As Emperor, he did whatever de- 
tracts from his renown as a man, however he may have in- 
creased his military fame, or inordinate power. Always kind 
and affectionate, and mostly judicious, his temptations were 
immense, and his advisers many of them worse tempters than 
even his triumphs. From the first moment of his consular to 
the last of his., imperial career, two extraordinary traitors, 
whom nearly all concur in denouncing as extremely bad men, 
Talleyrand and Fouche, were nearly always in his councils. 
Famtly crowms and multiplied coronets disaffected the French, 
and disgusted other nations. Neither the crowned heads nor 
the coroneted proved reliable in the agony of overthrow, when 
the dictator, as a last resort, attempted, too late, to rally the 
people to his support. Like considerable donations from the 
opulent in time of trouble to public revenue, which can never 
be maintained but by taxation of all the community, aris- 
tocratic and military contributions proved insufficient, the 
popular bulk was indispensable, and though the common people 
did not entirely desert, they ceased cordially to support the 
chief who had long shown, and even in that supreme emer- 
gency betrayed, estrangement from them. If the new-made 
.Duke of Rovigo is to be believed, the new nobility were more 
faithless than the old. But all nobility, old and new, were un- 
availing, without cordiality of the people. If Bonaparte had 
never crowned himself, and nearly all of his family, and many 



NOBILITY. 267 

of liis favorites, the people would never have abandoned him ; 
for their instinctive attachment seldom fails to be steadfast to 
any man true to them. Napoleon, in the anguish of abdication, 
reasoned wisely on the force of popularity ; because he had 
diminished, almost sacrificed, his own to imperial elevation and 
factitious aristocracy. That society in Europe may need to be 
classed, some with privileges superior to others, my argument 
does not deny. Several fungi of aristocracy in this republic 
already attest that mankind are prone to social orders and 
degrees. Worthless personal designations annul constitutional 
provision that the United States shall grant no titles of no- 
bility. But our fungi aristocracies arrogate some privileges, 
whereas the dukes, counts, and barons of the Emperor Napo- 
leon, endowed with imposing titles and prodigious wealth, Avere 
to hold both on the impracticable condition, that it should be 
without privilege, for which they sacrificed their creator, in 
hope that another grantor would restore, as of old, and add 
that advantage to wealth and title. French traditions and 
national vanity required, perhaps, notwithstanding the renunci- 
ation of noble titles, their revival for a monarchy. Notorious 
revolutionists, like Fouche, to be conciliated by public employ- 
ment, an elective sovereign, with difliculty reducing former po- 
litical equals or superiors to inferiors, degraded by titles and 
court garbs. All the imperial nobility enriched and entitled, 
but not otherwise dignified, unless by office, barons in, out- 
ranking dukes out of, public service ; nobles, without privilege 
or ofiice, were without authority. Napoleon's nobility, like his 
monarchy, reducing the pristine influence of both princedom 
and aristocracy, French titles became insignificant, as, without 
both Avealth and privilege, title always must be ; and, whether 
willing or unwilling, degraded. 

Similar, and still more fatal, mistakes of vain aggrandize- 
ment were Napoleon's divorce from his first wife and marriage 
with a second. Execution of the Bourbon prince was extremely 
detrimental to Bonaparte ; usurpation of the Spanish throne 
was a cardinal mistake of Napoleon, the fraudulent method more 
indefensible than the violent act. But more pernicious than 
any thing else, even more crushing than the ruinous llussian 



268 DIVORCE. 

campaign, was the conqueror's servile virtual confession, that 
he felt unsafe on his plebeian throne, while sustained bj only 
the sovereignty of the people ; and that, although he could 
vanquish and dethrone emperors and kings, yet his own throne 
required the cement of their matrimonial alliance. Josephine, 
too old for any hope of children, during fourteen years of fabu- 
lous prosperity an affectionate consort, anxiously and admira- 
bly recommended by her grace, benevolence, and winning 
manners, if sacrificed to state or dynastic necessity, history 
could palliate with precedent, policy might pardon, and a more 
fruitful wife, if French, perhaps would not be out of keeping 
among the miracles of Napoleon's enormous reign. But a 
foreigner, an emperor's daughter, niece of the last deplorable 
queen of France, was mightiest of the mistakes of the infatu- 
ated conqueror, who, abandoning elective right, meanly knelt 
in idolatrous veneration of hereditary illusion, and proclaimed 
to the people who anointed him that their unction and his 
sword were unavailing, without regal sanction. Some of his 
most incredible victories and conquests, having brought him 
again triumphant to Vienna, the imperial house of Hapsburgh 
was at his feet, for a sentence that it had ceased to reign, as the 
same demolisher had said of the older and more royal Bourbons 
reigning in France and Spain and the Two Sicilies. Instead 
of that, by the treaty of Vienna, signed there the 14th No- 
vember, 1809, Napoleon surrendered nearly all he had won 
for monstrous misalliance. The force of tradition, of ancestry, 
of family, of caste, of mere fashion, subjugated the victor to 
the vanquished. The humblest of any of the American toiling 
millions, illiterate, and howsoever ignorant, is proud of a father, 
grandfather, uncle, or kinsman, who may have served as a 
common soldier, drummer, or servant in the revolutionary 
army. Slaves are valued for their families ; horses, dogs, and 
cattle by their races ; and Napoleon yielded to universal human 
nature, when his vanity desired ancestral help. It was not 
true, when he told his imperial father-in-law that he preferred 
to be Rodolph of Hapsburgh ; Napoleon, in all his immensity, 
was not proud enough to feel that he was himself an ancestor. 
If, as long afterwards he said, with bitter pain of memory, the 



DIVORCE. 269 

assassin had succeeded who attempted his life in the palace 
where Maria Louisa was horn, that calamity would have been 
much less deplorable for the victim, and much less calamitous 
for France, than his Austrian marriage. In special remorse 
for that offence against morality and policy, but still, when 
expiring on his rock at St. Helena, unworthily sighing for 
a throne, the fallen Emperor justly termed that marriage an 
abyss covered with flowers, in which he plunged to destruc- 
tion. Ostentatious magnanimity by the treaty of Vienna, was 
but false forbearance for Napoleon's greatest misstep on the 
road to ruin. 

Louis Bonaparte's sons were in the established line of suc- 
cession to the imperial throne. Jerome soon had sons, and 
born of a king's daughter. Lucien had several sons, though 
not in the line established. Eugene, the step-son, was a 
worthy favorite of the Emperor ; though I know it was Jo- 
seph's belief, contrary to a common impression, that Josephine 
had never pressed her husband to adopt her son as his imperial 
heir. She was weak, timid, and unambitious. Her son was 
not a man whom his step-father deemed capable of holding the 
reins of his vast empire. Nor did Napoleon's family counte- 
nance his divorce, as has also been said. Lucien and Louis 
were absent and estranged ; Joseph was engrossed in Spain, 
and always discountenanced the Emperor's union with any 
foreign wife ; Jerome was in Westphalia, and of no weight with 
Napoleon. Their mother and Joseph's wife. Queen Julia, as 
she was called, were both much attached to Josephine. Eliza, 
Pauline, and Caroline, with occasional little feminine jealousies 
of Josephine's influence and grandeur, were not averse to her. 
The divorce was the Emperor's own act, by advice of bad coun- 
sellors, of whom Fouche, Duke of Otranto, the omnipresent 
instigator of misrule, was one of the earliest suggesters, and 
the most cruel and pertinacious persuader. The idea did not 
originate with the Emperor, but was conceived by its unhappy 
victim, long before entertained by her husband. From the 
(^eath, as heretofore mentioned, of Louis's eldest son, in Hol- 
land, in 1807, Josephine had been uneasy, and parasites busy, 
about a successor to the Empire, which the monarch's family 



270 DIVORCE. 

and the marshals might dispute, as Fouche insisted ; and, said 
that Jacobin courtier to Senators, the Emperor is too fond of 
the Empress Josephine ; too good, too tender-hearted, to inflict 
on her the pain of such a sacrifice, unless we constrain him to 
do what is indispensable to his dynasty. Nor were Eouche 
and Talleyrand the only contrivers of the ill-fated divorce, as 
they advised the lamentable execution of the Duke of Enghein. 
If the most authentic French history is to be believed, the 
Emperor of Russia, in the apparent warmth of his attachment 
to Napoleon, among their confidential chaff"ering at Tilsit, for 
Turkey and Poland, not only yielded Spain, Naples, and the 
continental system, to the Empire of the modern Charlemagne, 
but craftily suggested a princess of the Russian imperial 
family as Napoleon's wife, if divorced from his childless Em- 
press. Afterwards, during the war of 1809, between France 
and Austria, ending with the battle of Wagram, Russia, be- 
come a cold ally of France, was preparing to get rid of the 
distressing trammels of the continental system. When, there- 
fore, an Austrian princess was tendered, and the expected Rus- 
sian princess, if not withheld on demand, at any rate was not 
promptly forthcoming, the same never-failing evil counsellors, 
Fouche and Talleyrand, overruling Murat and others, who, 
when consulted, adhered to the Russian alliance, advised the 
Austrian wife. And, as Joseph always said, the Greek reli- 
gion determined the matter. A large majority of France, 
including nearly all the nobility, Italy almost a French pro- 
vince, and Spain to be subdued to Joseph Bonaparte's sway, 
were Roman Catholic : and it might have alarmed the clergy, 
as well as otherwise shock public sentiment, to place a Russian 
princess on the French throne, with her Greek rites, pope and 
priests. Napoleon's gradual acquiescence in the repudiation 
of an amiable, devoted and fond wife, long the exclusive part- 
ner of his bed, was probably not entirely from conviction that 
a son was necessary to his dynasty. He had betrayed so much 
desire to advance his family by royal marriages, that he must 
have deemed such a one promotion for himself. The feeling is 
intense which ranks social respectability above political power. 
Campaigns, absences, and flatterers, had also loosened the hold 



DIVORCE. 271 

■which old Josephine had on his constancy, when all hope of 
an heir by her was at an end. Lamartine's prurient and scan- 
dalous imagination of numerous fugitive amours has been 
already noticed as the mere royalist fancy, that Napoleon had 
mistresses because kings and princes multiply such baubles 
with impunity and applause. Napoleon's amours is one of the 
many fables told of him, of whom all sorts of absurd inven- 
tions abounded. So little prone was he to that royal privilege, 
that, if given to it at all, it would have been more from vanity, 
because it was king-like, than any amorous propensity. His 
rare amours were like occasional campaign meals, snatched 
under trees, or in hovels, as exciting irregularities, induced by 
fascinating women courtiers, vain of the embraces of a hero 
before whom all monarchs faded. His only two natural chil- 
dren are, one called Count Leon, son of a French mother, who 
afterwards married a German ; and another. Count Walewski, 
son of a Polish lady of that name, both strongly resembling 
the Emperor ; Count Walewski was employed by King Louis 
Philippe as a foreign minister, and is now ambassador, in Eng- 
land, of the French republic. 

When Napoleon was persuaded and resolved to espouse a 
regal wife, for an heir, there were no marriageable foreign 
princesses but Saxon, Austrian, and Russian ; the latter very 
young ; and in 1809 the Emperor Alexander was alienated, by 
Napoleon's declining to let Russia subdue Tui-key. The Saxon 
princess was a Protestant ; an English or Bourbon princess 
was out of the question ; and a Frenchwoman would not be the 
regal spouse desii'ed. When the imperial government of Aus- 
tria, certainly the royal Saxon, and, according to all credible 
accounts, the Russian likewise, desired their princely daughters 
to be the wives of their married conqueror, and his sycophants 
urged his divorce for that purpose, ^laria Louisa, the princess 
selected for the sacrifice, was the eldest daughter of the Em- 
peror Francis I. of Austria, by the second of his four wives. 
Educated in complete seclusion, and passive obedience, she was 
taught to consider herself an instrument of imperial policy, 
destined for whatever might contribute to her father's political 
welfare. With those feelings another was engrafted, of horror 



272 DIVORCE. 

at the monster who, she was taught to believe, had usurped the 
throne of France, steeped m crime, coarse, callous, brutal, 
bloodthirsty, and disgusting ; a Minotaur, whom it would be 
monstrous to embrace. The imperial family of Austria, all 
the nobility of Europe, and most of the common people, con- 
sidered marriage to Bonaparte as the worst infliction of irre- 
sistible conquest. In such repugnance, princely, aristocratic, 
and popular — universal — Maria Louisa was sacrificed to save 
a shred of empire, from which successive conquests had torn 
so much away. A well-educated young woman, tolerably 
versed in several languages, though not speaking French per- 
fectly, somewhat instructed in Latin, which is spoken in Hun- 
gary, could paint in oil, was a good musician, quiet, timid, well- 
formed, healthy, plump, with a profusion of chestnut hair, and 
the thick lips that are said to indicate her family. Josephine 
was her better in appearance, grace, manners, and experience 
of the world : with the soft negligence and sweet familiarity 
of a Creole, well practised in the ways of attraction ; in all 
but princedom, age, and fecundity, much the best wife. The 
two were alike in placid, even tempers, total abstinence from 
all politics and intrigue, and complete submission to a husband 
absolute but affectionate, whose lively and fond attentions they 
both courted and enjoyed. The Austrian, undeceived as to 
Napoleon's manners, habits, and temper, soon learned to like 
as much as she had dreaded him ; for rarely was husband more 
uxorious ; and from Maria Louisa's arms he boasted that he 
never strayed. So warm had her attachment become, that 
she wished at one time to follow him to Elba, but was told, 
among other means of deterring her, that his mistress, Ma- 
dame Walewski, was there with him. Lamartine paints an 
affecting description of the Emperor's refusal, at Fontainebleau, 
either to consent to this lady's entreaty to be allowed to accom- 
pany him into banishment, or even to see her for farewell. But 
how preposterous is that prejudice which imputes it as unfeel- 
ing to the Emperor, in the distraction of his overthrow, be- 
trayal, and abdication, to misspend precious moments of 
extreme disturbance in unavailing sympathy with a mistress 
vainly deploring his departure, and urgent, by going with 



DIVORCE. 273 

him, to give unpardonable offence to his laA\ful -wife and all the 
imperial connexions, ^yhonl, no doubt, Napoleon valued infi- 
nitely more than any object of illicit love ; for love was not 
the passion of a man who said of himself, that his absorbing 
passion was power. 

Fouche is said to have been the barbarous serving-man who 
first told Josephine that divorce awaited her. The Emperor 
having come to that determination, after several cold, uncom- 
fortable interviews, on his return from Vienna, at length 
plainly announced to Josephine the cruel degradation designed 
for her, which she had long apprehended. Her son and 
daughter were then employed by their step-father, and sub- 
mitted to the revolting task of engaging their mother's acqui- 
escence. And it is flagrant proof of the selfish rapacity for 
kingdoms to which Napoleon had inured all his household, that 
at the first interview between him and Josephine in her son's 
presence, he pleading for her submission, she entreated the 
Emperor to make Eugene king of Italy, where he was then 
viceroy ; from which he dissuaded her, lest it should seem to 
be the price paid for her consent to the divorce. Among the 
reflections forced upon us by that sacrifice of domestic affec- 
tions to inordinate ambition, is the remarkable fact, that, while 
the divorced woman's descendants, the Beauharnois, are now 
connected with several royal families, the family of the hus- 
band, the Bonapartes, by the death of the only issue of Na- 
poleon's imperial consort, lost in a single life all such con- 
nexions, except by the remote and slender tie of Jerome's 
"VVirtemburg wife, whose children were excluded from the im- 
perial succession. Such is the short-sightedness of worldly 
wisdom, and the caprice of fortune. If Napoleon had lived 
as long as Joseph, or their mother, he would have survived 
liis son, the King of Rome, witnessed his wife's cohabitation 
with Niepperg, the dissolution of all his royal connexions, and 
the permanent establishment of those of his divorced wife. 

On the IGth December, 1809, the Senate decreed tlie disso- 
lution of the civil contract between Napoleon and Josephine ; 
and there was no other, no religious union between them hav- 
ing ever been solemnized. On the 18th January, 1810, the 

Vol. III. — 18 



274 DIVORCE. 

diocesan officiality of Paris, after some hesitation, annulled 
whatever spiritual obligation there might be. From that time 
till her death, the Emperor divided his attentions between Jo- 
sephine, whom he continued to treat with the most magnifi- 
cent respect, and Maria Louisa, to whom he was always a 
devoted husband. After his last interview with Josepliine as 
man and wife, during the fortnight that elapsed before Maria 
Louisa's arrival, the Emperor withdrew from Paris to Trianon, 
and, contrary to the industrious habits of his busy life, for the 
first time gave himself up to mere pastime, shooting and hunt- 
ing ; often, however, visiting Josephine, by the kindest atten- 
tion ministering to her comfort and enjoyments, preserving her 
title as Empress, granting her a revenue of three millions of 
francs, and in every way striving to soften the blow, to which 
she submitted with gentle but melancholy resignation. 

Although the first monarch of the imperial German or Aus- 
trian house of Hapsburgh was merely a fortunate adventurer, 
who succeeded by noble alliances to found a dynasty second to 
none in Europe, to which German and Hungarian nobles ral- 
lied ever since, as Napoleon flattered himself the French nobi- 
lity would to his, yet his foreign wife was parcel of the con- 
quests by which he humiliated Austria, whose nobles could 
not be reconciled to it ; one of whom, most forward, as his 
imperial master's representative, to tender the imperial wife, 
and rejoice in her marriage to the conqueror, Schwartzenburg, 
as soon as Napoleon's reverses began, was the first to declare 
that the match which policy made, policy might undo. On 
the 16th February, 1810, the Emperor Francis signed the 
marriage contract of his daughter with the Emperor Napoleon, 
whose ambassador extraordinary, Berthier, Prince of Wagram, 
to marry the princess by proxy, executed the civil contract 
with the great Archduke Charles, on the 9th March, and the 
religious ceremony was performed the 11th of that month, 
1810. Hollow demonstrations of joy and tokens of amity were 
paraded, with unprecedented concession of German ancient 
imperial supremacy to that of recent French. But the Ger- 
man imperial family, the country nobility, and the people, by 
unequivocal indications, manifested their sense of shame. The 



DIVORCE. 275 

police of Vienna were constrained, by strong precautions, to 
prevent insulting popular outbreaks. An old archduke, Albert 
of Saxony, who had been present when Maria Antoinette was 
married to Louis XVI., would not attend the marriage of her 
grand-niece to Napoleon. Berthier's magnificent suite entered 
Vienna by a temporary bridge, where the French conquerors 
had lately destroyed the fortifications of the German capital. 
Metternich followed Kaunitz precedent, by whose advice the 
haughty Empress Theresa complimented Louis XV.'s mistress, 
De Pompadour; accepting transient dishonor, as not reprehen- 
sible, if conducive to ultimate success. Minor aspirants for 
less power daily submit to less conspicuous elevation of castes, 
both aristocratic and democratic, and kneel to vulgar supe- 
riority for preferment; like kings, princes, and statesmen at 
unworthy shrines. Metternich, nevertheless, adroitly seized 
the general manifestation of Austrian discontent with the 
French marriage to remonstrate against the hardest conditions 
of the last peace dictated to his father-in-law by Napoleon, 
■whose minister replied, that to his magnanimity the Emperor 
Francis was indebted for his very throne, and the Austrian 
Empire for its existence. Thus the inauspicious marriage was 
treated by the wife's countrymen as odious, and by the hus- 
band's, as conquered, like Italy, Illyria, and much more of the 
German Empire, torn from its foundations and annexed to 
France. At Paris, too, there was strong feeling of supersti- 
tious deprecation. Popular instinct recalled historical recol- 
lections of the misfortunes which followed the marriage of 
Maria Louisa's great-aunt, Maria Antoinette, with Napoleon's 
precursor on the French throne, both brought to the scaffold, 
and all Austrian alliance was regarded with ominous misgiving. 
Nevertheless, Napoleon and his court consummated his union 
with an Austrian imperial princess, as the indestructible pledge 
of his perpetuated imperial dynasty. All the pomps and splen- 
dors of demonstrative France were eclipsed by the magnificent 
ostentation of Maria Louisa's arrival at Strasburg and journey 
to Compiegne, the place appointed for meeting the Emperor. 
Fetes, progresses, and rejoicings unexampled signalized her 
advent with ovation, her pregnancy by transports of fclicita- 



276 MARRIAGE. 

tion, her giving birth to a son, called King of Rome, by deli- 
rium of delight. The French Emperor, then more than forty 
years old, never the harsh and abrupt despot falsely depicted, 
always gay, communicative, and polite, exemplified one of his 
own oft-quoted adages, that from the sublime to the ridiculous 
there is but one step. The hero, for fifteen years absorbed in 
9<chievements filling the world with his renown, descended at 
once to all the frivolities of a puerile honeymoon ; performing 
the part of a giddy enamoured youth. To meet his bride, he 
was persuaded by his sister Pauline, queen of no other realms 
than those of fashion, dress, and female elegance, to lay aside the 
regimentals which he had worn ever since his lieutenancy, and 
throughout his whole manhood, and put on a suit of clothes 
made by Leger, the fashionable tailor of Paris. After trying, 
however, he could not bear the change, but resumed the uni- 
form and black stock, which, like his gray surtout and small 
cocked hat, had become classical as well as habitual. Wher- 
ever Maria Louisa stopped on her journey, a page met her 
with a love-letter from the Emperor, with bouquets of flowers, 
and game which he had killed with the time he misspent, long- 
ing for her arrival. He personally superintended the arrange- 
ment of her apartments, splendidly furnished the walls of one 
room, entirely draped with Cashmere shawls. Whatever royal 
precedents established for the reception of a queen of France, 
was re-enacted with preposterous servility. A soldier, who 
had followed Napoleon in most of his battles, Savary, Duke 
of Rovigo, aptly says of these backslidings, " We were already 
become courtiers more obsequious than those of Louis XIV., 
and no longer the men who had subdued so many peoples." 

As the princess approached Compiegne her impatient lover 
would no longer bear the delay of forms and fetters of cere- 
mony; but, jumping into a calashe, hastened, incognito, 
with no one but Murat, attended by a single outrider,- to 
meet, surprise, and salute his eagerly expected and half-married 
bride. Returning w^ith her after night, in a pelting rain, the 
enamoured dictator, broken to no denials, and yielding to no 
obstacles, contrary to the express interdict of his own Code 
Napoleon, would not await either the civil contract or the re- 



MARRIAGE. 277 

ligiou? union afterwards solemnized at St. Cloud and Paris, 
but anticipated both by immediate cohabitation at Compiegne. 
Such was the magnificent, fatal, and illicit union of Napoleon 
with another emperor's daughter. As on all occasions sur- 
rounded by his family, he introduced to the Empress the nu- 
merous monarchs of his making — Joseph's wife, then Queen 
of Spain, Louis's wife, Queen of Holland, Caroline and her 
husband. King and Queen of Naples, Jerome and his Wirtem- 
burg wife. King and Queen of Westphalia, Eugene and his 
Bavarian wife, Viceroys of Italy, Stephania Beauharnois, 
Grand Duchess of Baden, with a long train of nobles, new 
and old, who attended the wedding and predicted its happy 
results. Madame Mother, as the parent of all the Bonapartes 
was called, was there, less confident of the future. On the 
1st of July, 1810, when the Austrian ambassador, Swartzen- 
berg, entertained the imperial bride and bridegroom at a ball, 
the terrible accident which marred the celebration of Maria 
Antoinette's wedding was recalled by a fire, by which a prin- 
cess Swartzenberg, and other distinguished guests, perished in 
the flames, and the Russian ambassador, Kourakin, was tram- 
pled under the feet of crowds of affrighted fugitives from the 
conflagration, which Napoleon, with all his power and energy, 
was unable to extinguish, till it confirmed the popular super- 
stition, that his marriage was doomed to calamity. 
. Joseph was struggling in vain against unanimous popular 
aversion in Spain, Lucien, seeking refuge in America, found 
it in England, Louis, also flying from Napoleon's dictation, 
escaped into Austria, Russia was arming for the contest in 
which Napoleon fell, Austria and Prussia were secretly com- 
bining for another conflict, the Pope was a French prisoner, 
the continental system was enforced by a decree that all Eng- 
lish merchandise should be burned, Holland, Rome, and other 
distant independencies, were reduced to French provinces ; 
Napoleon erected one hundred and thirty instead of eighty- 
five French departments, extending France, so called, from 
the Baltic to the Garigliano, from the Adriatic to the ocean. 
As the Emperor's flatterers told him, and his own ambition 
confirmed, the fragments of the empire of Charlemagne were 



278 INVASION OF SPAIN. 

put together under Napoleon's sway, and all that was wanting 
to perpetuate that empire was the son born the 20th March, 
1811. 

The year 1810, so pregnant with events indicative of Na- 
poleon's approaching decline, was that in which one of his most 
formidable antagonists, Bernadotte, was chosen, by the States- 
General of Sweden, assembled in extraordinary diet, heredi- 
tary prince of that kingdom, and adopted son of the reigning 
monarch, Charles XIII. It has been already mentioned that 
Napoleon preferred that Eugene Beauharnois should assume 
the crown of a kingdom disposed to strengthen itself by close 
alliance with the French Emperor. But Eugene and his wife 
declined ; and Bernadotte pleaded to his commander, reluctant 
to name him king, " Sire, would you make me greater than 
yourself, by constraining me to refuse a crown?" The prince 
put aside, to be supplanted by Bernadotte, was said to be his 
mother the queen's son by a father allowed by the king her 
husband to perform the office of which he was incapable. 
; Numerous family thrones, a nobility without privileges, 
jdivorce from a French wife, and misalliance with an emperor's 
jdaughter, all contributed to Napoleon's overthrow ; to which 
pis despotic practical refutal of the principles he sincerely pro- 
fessed, was, no doubt, largely instrumental. Despotism, which 
he called dictatorship, forced on him by constant and marvel- 
lous success against several aggressive coalitions, misled him to 
place nearly all his family on thrones, to create an ill-contrived 
aristocracy, to repudiate a much respected wife, and misally 
himself with a foreign princess, whose family and country were 
his unappeasable enemies. From those steps towards ruin, we 
now go back a few years in point of time, to that invasion of 
Spain, of which Napoleon himself testified at St. Helena, 
" That unfortunate war dethroned me. All the circumstances 
of my disasters concurred to attach themselves to that fatal 
knot. It divided my forces, multiplied my efforts, opened a 
wing to the English soldiers, attacked my morality in Europe. 
I confess that I embarked very badly in the affair. The im- 
morality could not but show itself much too plainly, the injus- 
tice much too cynical ; the whole remained a vile affair." 



INVASION OF SPAIN. 279 

After such severe condemnation by the author himself of the 
most censurable political injustice of his life, history can hardly 
undertake its defence or apology. Still something may be said 
to explain what the author's candid and repentant confession 
does not deny, was a vile end sought by immoral means. 
Mack had been Austrian agent of English subsidies, whose 
surrender at Ulm was announced to Pitt the 17 th October, 
1805, when entertaining his pupils, Canning, Castlereagh, and 
the future Duke of Wellington, at dinner. The victory of 
Austerlitz, on the 2d December of that year, was fatal to the 
British premier, whose health immediately failed and declined, 
till he expired, the 23d January, 1806. Pitt and Napoleon, 
bitter foes, both died of broken hearts, the one at forty-seven, 
the other fifty-four ; both prematurely cut off. Pitt sunk under 
the peace of Presburg, dictated by Napoleon to Austria ; Na- 
poleon under the treaty of Paris, dictated by Castlereagh to 
France. Many of his predictions at St. Helena have been 
realized. Pitt likewise prophesied ; as w^as attested by Wel- 
lington at the table of Richelieu, first minister of Louis XVIII., 
in presence of the foreign ministers of nearly all Europe, at 
Paris, in 1816, eleven years after the prophecy then verified. 
To his guests in 1805, and three years before Napoleon's inva- 
sion of Spain, deploring the battle of Austerlitz — "Spain," 
said Pitt, " Avill light the first blaze of that patriotic war which 
alone can save Europe. My intelHgence from that country is, 
that if the nobility and clergy have degenerated, by the eifects 
of bad government, and are at the feet of a favorite, the people 
preserve all their primitive purity, and theu' hatred of France, 
as much as ever, and almost equal to their love of their sove- 
reigns. Bonaparte thinks, and must think, their existence 
incompatible with his. He will try to expel them ; and then 
will arise the war I desire." 

Consolidation of the two governments of France and Spain 
in the hands of one and the same monarch, was a French am- 
bition by no means originating with Napoleon. Louis XIV. 
attempted and nearly accomplished it, whose succession Napo- 
leon considered his inheritance. Louis Philippe latterly risked 
his crown to marry his son, in defiance of England, to the pre- 



280 INVASION OF SPAIN. 

sumptive heiress of the Spanish throne. Spain has mostly 
been closely allied with France ; joined her in the contest for 
North American independence ; and, from the treaty of Basle, 
remained always in close alliance. But in March, 1806, when 
Joseph Bonaparte supplanted the Bourbon King of Naples, 
Napoleon was tempted to try the same thing in Spain, by a 
state of things which might have induced any French 
government. Ferdinand, the dethroned King of Naples, 
brother of Charles IV., King of Spain, refused to recognise 
Joseph as King of Naples. " If Charles will not, his suc- 
cessor shall," said Napoleon, "recognise my brother as king 
of Naples." A Russian ambassador, Strogonoff, to counteract 
the Emperor Napoleon's apprehended designs, was sent to 
Madrid, in January, 1806, and prevailed on the Prince of 
Peace, who was in effect the Spanish government, to unite 
Spain with the coalition against France. At the same time, 
Augustin Arguelles went secretly from Spain to London, to 
make peace with England, as necessary to save the Spanish 
American colonies, where General Beresford had^^already cap- 
tured Buenos Ayres. Urged by Russia and countenanced by 
England, the Prince of Peace issued his ambiguous, warlike 
manifesto of the 6th October, 1806, understood to announce 
war against Napoleon, though not expressly declared. If at 
that time he had anticipated Spanish hostilities, by invading 
Spain, he would have been not only justifiable, but perhaps 
successful ; for in such warfare with the Spanish government 
there would have been nothing insulting to the nation, as in- 
volved in Napoleon's invasion two years afterwards. The end 
was justifiable in 1806, and the means would be easier. A 
small French army might have taken Madrid and overthrown 
the government then, which several hundred thousand French 
troops were unable to effect in 1808, by conquering the 
offended people. But just when the Spanish manifesto of Oc- 
tober, 1806, menaced Napoleon., Prussia plunged into the war 
against him, and Napoleon found it necessary to defer the con- 
test, become inevitable with Spain, from French policy. Mean- 
time the victory of Jena demolished the kingdom of Prussia, 
created by aggressions and conquests of the great Frederic as 



INVASION OF SrAIN. 281 

unjustifiable and aggrandizing as Napoleon's invasion of Spain. 
Jena, superadded to Austerlitz, and England exciting Portugal 
to conflict with Franco, Napoleon had reason for sending an 
army into Spain, where the condition of the government in- 
vited, if it did not justify, expulsion of the reigning royal 
Bourbon family. Stolidity of the king, Charles IV., profli- 
gate impudicity of the queen, who said that her son Ferdinand 
was not her husband the king's son, the base and ignoble, un- 
filial and infamous nature of the prince, afterwards Ferdinand 
VIT., as heir-apparent rebelling to dethrone his father, the 
universal hatred in which the queen's paramour and king's 
favorite, Godoy, Prince of Peace, was held, all these circum- 
cumstances strongly pleaded for a change of such detestable 
sovereigns. The government was totally disorganized ; every 
branch of it in complete disorder. The army, the navy, the 
judges, the other ofiicers of state, were unpaid. The national 
debt was enormous, credit at the lowest ebb. The whole re- 
sources of the kingdom were insufficient for current expenses. 
Shocking quarrels prevailed in the royal family. The son 
revolted and dethroned the father ; the mother accused the son 
of attempting to murder her ; the favorite was cast into con- 
finement and his life endangered by a mob of the prince's fac- 
tion. Both the royal contestants, father and son, appealed to 
Napoleon to protect each against the other. Ferdinand en- 
treated him to give him a wife of the Bonaparte family, which 
would have been done, but that Lucien's daughter Charlotte, 
chosen for that purpose, refused the arrangement. The French 
troops marched into Spain were received as deliverers. Na- 
poleon was universally popular there ; his portrait was in every 
family, his applause on all tongues. All classes, noble, cleri- 
cal, royal, and plebeian, regarded him as the hero who had 
subdued anarchy, restored order and religion in France. 
They intreated him to rid them of Godoy, and maintain 
Ferdinand, proclaimed king in place of his cuckold, stupid 
father, strumpet mother, and her detested paramour Godoy. 
Napoleon had no doubt meditated the substitution of his for 
the Bourbon family on the Spanish as on the Neapolitan 
throne. The Spanish royal incumbents were undeniably unfit 



282 INVASION OF SPAIN. 

to reign. The Bonaparte who had reigned in Naples proved 
himself a wise and virtuous as well as a welcome monarch, who 
might regenerate the Spanish nation, as he did the Neapolitan. 
Napoleon would complete what Louis XIV. began ; the union of 
Spain with France under thrones filled bj one family. Spain 
was disgusted and distracted by the despicable Bourbons, and 
enamored with Napoleon, who had no hand in the royal Spa- 
nish quarrels ; neither originated nor matured the rupture and 
convulsions which, as it were, providentially invited him to 
enthrone his family instead of the Bourbons. Entirely and 
always the creature of circumstances, conforming himself to 
them, and not forcing them to him, in that spirit a fatalist, he 
might well believe that fortune called him to put his brother 
on the Spanish throne. 

With such Spanish and individual inducements, those of all 
Europe harmonized. The British outrage at Copenhagen, in 
September, 1807, united Russia, and Austria, and Denmark, in 
fact, nearly all Europe, with Napoleon, in bitter aversion to 
England. That monstrous aggression of the Canning and 
Castlereagh ministry enabled Napoleon to enforce his conti- 
nental system with redoubled vigor. The same Jackson who 
soon after came as British minister to the United States, en- 
voy who accompanied the British fleet and army to Copenhagen 
with Admiral Gambler, chief of the British negotiators at 
Ghent, commanding the fleet, by their nefarious exjaloit, se- 
conded the victories of Jena and Austerlitz, to tempt the 
French Emperor to abuse colossal power. At Tilsit, Alex- 
ander urged him to pursue his career of conquests, and con- 
tinued, long afterwards, constantly to countenance his family 
sovereignties. It was Napoleon's misfortune to have no oppo- 
nent then, nor obstacle on the continent ; with infinitely better 
reason to put a brother on the Spanish throne than Alexander 
had a right to Finland, England to Malta, or, since his over- 
throw, most of his conquerors to their territorial aggrandize- 
ments in 1815, which, like his, were mere conquests. He was 
not going to Spain till thus tempted ; and, when he went 
to Bayonne, nearly all Spain invited him. The royal father 
and son left Spain to meet him there, and fell at his feet. The 



INVASION OF SPAIN. 283 

nobility, clergy, and Spanish commonalty, united to ask him 
for a ruler ; and, at first, appeared delighted with his choice. 
After the sanguinary suppression, on the 2d of May, 1808, of 
the revolt at Madrid, by Murat, of which our American guest, 
General Grouchy, was chief executioner, and the marvellous 
insurrection of all Spain, w^hich followed that catastrophe ; 
after Dupont's incredible surrender, and since all the French 
enormities, reverses, and their expulsion from Spain, history 
dwells on the method of Napoleon's defeated attempts there, 
as atrocious perfidy, and condemns its author as deserving of 
all he sufiered at St. Helena. So general, well nigh universal 
and overwhelming is that condemnation, that even he himself, 
in part, joined in it, and it may be vain to endeavor to rescue 
him from some of the odium of the invasion of Spain, which, 
with the Duke of Enghein's execution, will remain, for ever, 
blots on his character. Still the circumstances hereinbefore 
summarily mentioned, show that the act was no more than most 
other acts of forcible aggrandizement, performed by every 
monarch, and when successful, vindicated by nearly all histo- 
rians. The English bombardment of Copenhagen, in 1807, 
was much less justifiable than the French invasion of Spain in 
1808. Whether Napoleon's policy would have been wiser if he 
had given Ferdinand the daughter of Lucien for a queen of 
Spain, and governed that country by a niece, instead of a 
brother, is mere conjecture. Considering his Avhole scheme of 
family royalties a pernicious mistake, nothing in the Spanish 
invasion is more censurable than all such transactions, with 
which history, sacred and profane, abounds ; whose greatest 
demerit is want of success. 

Napoleon's temptations to overaction, at that time, cannot 
be appreciated without adverting to the obscurity, contempt, 
and ignominy, into which the whole of the ancient royal family 
of France, his only competitors for the throne, had sunk. 
The despicable Count d'Artois, with his Condes, Bourbons, 
Polignacs, and other conspirators, had fallen into poverty- 
stricken inanition. The Duke of Orleans, hid, almost un- 
known, in a remote corner of Southern Italy. The Count of 
Lisle, as Louis XVIII. was called, long vagabond and outcast, 



284 BOURBONS. 

had become a pest. Russia, Prussia, Austria, and other conti- 
nental powers, dreading Napoleon, and adulating him, treated 
the poor pretender to the French throne as if he were the 
Egyptian plague, or some other pestilence, which must be 
excluded from their dominions ; and he escaped, at last, not 
into England, where he was not allowed even to land, but to 
Scotland, where he and his family were relegated. Driven 
hastily from Russia by the Emperor Paul, and transiently rein- 
stated there by his son Alexander, Louis found refuge, at one 
time, in "Warsaw, then the chief town of a Prussian province, 
where the King of Prussia asked Bonaparte if he had any 
objection to the pretender's remaining ; to which the First 
Consul answered, kindly, as was his invariable treatment of the 
Bourbons, that he had no objection. Prussians, high in au- 
thority, probably with their government's consent, proposed to 
Louis, impoverished and abandoned, to abdicate the French 
crown for Italian principalities, which he positively refused, 
and of which proposal Bonaparte was, uninformed. Louis, 
afterAvards a fugitive at Verona, was compelled, or deemed it 
necessary, to fly thence in disguise. The whole continent of 
Europe becoming, at length, afraid of his residence anywhere, 
in 1809 he embarked, in a Swedish frigate, to seek sanctuary 
behind the sea-girt bulwarks of England, where his arrival was 
extremely unwelcome. Always bidding liberal concessions for 
royal restoration to what he uniformly called and deemed his 
throne, in 1804, by proclamation, he promised to reform the 
old French royal government ; and by another proclamation, 
in 1806, went the length of granting pardon, oblivion, and 
confirmation to all the revolutionary acts from 1789 to 1804 — 
to everything but the Empire and Napoleon. When he arrived 
in England, so forlorn was his destitute condition, and so 
formidable Napoleon, that the ministry refused to let Louis 
land, or go to London. He was ordered to Scotland, and, in 
effect, dethroned by an official order in Council, which, careful 
not to style him king, called him merely the " Chief of the 
Bourbon family, who will find an honorable and safe asylum, 
if he will live among us conformably to his actual situation. 
But as the war in which we are engaged requires the unanimous 



BOURBONS. 285 

-support of the English people, we will not compromise it by 
imprudently taking ground which would give it a new cha- 
racter, and discourage the nation, when the submission of 
nearly the whole continent of Europe to the order of things 
existing in France presents fewer chances for the re-establish- 
ment of the Bourbons than at any other epoch of the revolu- 
tionary war, which Great Britain almost alone sustains." The 
dethroned and forlorn Bourbon pretender, landing in England 
the day that the Emperor Napoleon, in all his then enormous 
and delusive might, crossed the Pyrenees, on his way to subdue 
Spain into the government of his brother Joseph — protesting 
against, but obliged to submit to his hard fate, as simple Count 
of Lisle, was glad to accept the almost charitable hospitality 
of a proud but generous English nobleman, the Duke of Buck- 
ingham; and at one of his country-houses, Gosfield Hall, 
shrunk into the disfranchisement and insignificance, from which 
he would never have emerged, but for Napoleon's infatuation. 
To that desperate degradation had war, aristocratical and 
monarchical hostility, enabled Bonaparte to reduce the 
wretched Bourbons. 

If Louis, instead of the hiding-place begrudged to his family 
in Scotland, had, like Louis Philippe and Joseph Bonaparte, 
when expelled, sought refuge in America, his sanctuary would 
have been more unintimidated. If the Bourbons had been 
expelled from thrones in France, Spain, and the Sicilies, it 
would have been useful to all those countries. At all events, 
Joseph Bonaparte is innocent of all but conciliatory and laud- 
able means to accomplish his brother's design, which proved 
highly beneficial to Spain, by political and ecclesiastical re- 
forms. Wise Spaniards regret that Joseph was not adopted 
as King of Spain. The Memoirs of a Statesman, inimical as 
that work is to all the Bonapartes, describes Joseph, on his 
entry into Naples, as "a well-disposed man, of mild manners, 
exempt from ambition, who would have preferred a peaceable 
existence to the brilliant condition allotted for him ; a theoriz- 
ing calculator in politics and in administration, by his conver- 
sation and writings protecting the industry and commerce, 
which his mere presence revived or put to flight." Regcncra- 



286 JOSEPH IN SPAIN. 

tion of Naples is eclipsed by such brilliant exploits as the vic- 
tories of Napoleon ; but impartial history must not be blinded 
by dazzling events. General Lamarque's published letters of 
1824 and 1830, which Joseph, not without proper sensibility, 
has shown me at Point Breeze, recapitulated, as an eye-witness 
of his reforms in the Two Sicilies, feudality extinguished, rob- ■' 
bery and general depredation crushed, a system of just, instead 
of unjust, taxation introduced, the finances from chaos brought 
to order, the nobles and people reconciled, the construction of 
good roads in all directions, the capital embellished, the army 
and navy organized, and general prosperity established, by 
King Joseph's carrying into that benighted kingdom the sun- 
shine of the French liberal principles of 1789. Taken reluc- 
tantly from a crown of roses in Naples, to a crown of thorns 
in Spain, Joseph, on his arrival at Bayonne, was assured that 
Charles IV. refused to return to Spain without the Prince of 
Peace, who was universally detested ; that Ferdinand, who 
had dethroned his father, was wholly untrustworthy, as a son 
dethroning his father was shocking to all Europe ; that the 
junta assembled and united at Bayonne regarded Joseph's ac- 
ceptance of the throne they proffered as the only safety for 
Spain ; which Ferdinand was the first to confirm, by his con- 
gratulations to the new king. One of the earliest and most 
active of his Spanish enemies, Toreno, thus describes Joseph : 
"Joseph Napoleon, after refusing the throne of Lombardy, 
which Napoleon ofiered him, governed the kingdom of Naples • 
with adequate intelligence and success. In a tranquil period, 
and provided with sufiicient authority, if not more legitimate, • 
at least less odious in its origin, the intrusive monarch, far 
from dishonoring the throne, would have helped the happiness 
of Spain. Born of the common class, and having gone through 
all the overturnings of a great political revolution, he possessed 
essentially the knowledge of men and things. Of a gentle dis- '' 
position, with a gracious countenance, well informed, polished, 
and polite in his manners, he would have captivated the Spa- - 
niards, if he had not beforehand so grievously wounded them , ^ 
in their point of honor and their pride. Moreover, Joseph's . 
extreme propensity to efi"eminacy and pleasure somewhat ob- 



JOSEPH IN SPAIN. 287 

scured his fine qualities, and gave rise to ridiculous fables and 
old women's stories of his person, which the multitude adopted 
in their passionate enmity. To such a point did this go, that, 
not satisfied with accusing him of being a drunkard and disso- 
lute, it was carried so far as to accuse him of bodily defects, 
and they said he was blind of one eye. His fluent and flowery 
elocution of itself became very injurious to him ; for, carried 
away by it, he risked himself by making speeches in a 
tongue not familiar to him, whose Imprudent use, joined to the 
exaggerated report of his defects, induced the composition of 
popular farces, played in all the theatres of the kingdom, which 
contributed to throw on his person not hatred, but contempt, 
which, of all the sentiments of the soul, is the most terrible for 
him who desires to encircle his forehead with a crown. On 
the whole, Joseph, although endowed with many praiseworthy 
qualities, wanted those austere and warlike virtues then neces- 
sary in Spain ; and his imperfections, feeble spots at any other 
time, swelled immeasurably in the eyes of an ofi'endcd and 
furious nation." 

. . The war in Spain between the French and Spanish was ex- 
terminating. Universal destruction of the French, by any 
means, was the Spanish method ; universal pillage and rapine 
the French system, with rare exceptions on either side to that 
cruel code. Persons there at the time, on whose statements I 
can rely, mention abominable bai-barlties which seem incredi- 
ble : all breaking forth on both sides, after the dreadful 
slaughter at Madrid, the 2d May, 1808, when Murat subdued 
and punished by sanguinary vengeance what he deemed, and 
probably truly, a revolt. After that, as I am assured by my 
. informant, then in Madrid, women contracted the venereal dis- 
ease on purpose to give it to the French, wells were filled with 
assassinated Frenchmen; and French officers of every rank 
robbed every thing and every where, with undisguised rapine. 
In the French Revolution there was more, but not more shock- 
ing, bloodshed ; never in the world plunder and robbery so 
universal. The most distinguished exception to these enormi- 
ties was King Joseph ; against whom it is a common English 
and American prejudice to believe that he pilfered palaces and 



288 JOSEPH KING OF SPAIN. 

churches, and that the pictures and other ornaments of his 
American residence were spoliations from Spain. Like Napo- 
leon, Joseph was no lover of money. Marrying some fortune, 
he was enahled during the revolution to increase it by cheap 
purchases of the property, both real and personal, which were 
then opportune. Valuable donations, on the several foreign 
missions he filled, added more, as is common in Europe on. all 
such occasions. Several years king, his privy purse was con- 
siderable. By all these fair means his property increased, 
though never very large ; not exceeding a million of dollars. 
While King of Spain, a person named Christophe, skilled in 
pictures, purchased them there for him, as opportunity offered. 
Not one of those he possessed was captured, or otherwise ille- 
gally obtained. On the contrary, the Duke of Wellington 
took all of King Joseph's baggage and effects at the battle of 
Vittoria, but found no ill-got plunder among them. 

Entering Spain the 8th July, 1808, within a week of his 
arrival at Madrid tidings of Dupont's disastrous surrender of 
the French army at Baylen, caused by anxiety to save plunder, 
compelled King Joseph to retire from his capital, and begin 
his fatal contest with that peculiar people, for whose admirable 
and invincible, ferocious and romantic nationality, Joseph Bo- 
naparte entertained the highest respect, which I have often 
heard him express. Insuperable provincial attachments, which 
in France and other countries it was the constant labor of Na- 
poleon, by metropolitan centralization, to destroy, saved the 
whole Spanish kingdom from subjugation. Universal insur- 
rection was simultaneous, from Asturias to Andalusia. The 
smallest of all the Spanish provinces, armed by nature with 
the superior aptitude for war and love of independence of 
mountain population, by instantaneous, instinctive resistance, 
with which all the other provinces sympathizing, roused the 
whole kingdom against its invaders. Notwithstanding a caste 
of proud nobility, and a class of domineering clergy, conside- 
rable equality is a Spanish popular right, habit, and power. 
As always takes place, when emergencies draw forth demo- 
cratic patriotism, the notable and most respectable inhabitants, 
of all classes, were elected members of the provincial juntas, par- 



JOSEPH KING OF SPAIN. 289 

ticnlarly in Asturias, superseding the merely noble, the merely 
vulgar, and otherwise unworthy, apt to contrive to be upper- 
most in the stagnation of democracy. Less selfish and more 
determined than royalty in capitals, rural democracy, also more 
prompt and energetic, verified Pitt's dying prophecy. The 
Spanish mountaineers, muleteers, shepherds, and populace al- 
together, rose as one man, armed with fury and whatever 
weapons it supplied, against Napoleon's disciplined armies. 
Although the nobility and higher clergy mostly gave in their 
adhesion to King Joseph, an unlettered and indolent mass, as 
described by Valleius Paterculus eighteen hundred years be- 
fore, scattered, numerous, and fierce, rushed to conflict, with 
sanguinary ardor, for their rude homes, their captive sove- 
reign, and their dominant religion. Whether they could have 
resisted Napoleon without English aid, is a question on which 
England and Spain are at issue. The Prince of Peace, in his 
memoirs, written during his retirement at Kome, by plausible 
reasons and multiplied proofs, insists that the French could 
never have subdued the Spanish alone. And Godoy was a 
man much superior to English and French adopting Spanish 
aristocratic disparagement of that upstart ; liberal and intelli- 
gent, though more avaricious than ambitious, decried by the 
jealous nobility, over whom he "was raised from obscurity. 
!j George W. Irving, a highly respectable gentleman, American 
j minister in Spain during nearly all the war, thus answers my 
I enquiry of him as to the reality of things there. " As to the 
li works of Thiers and Torreno" (which I mentioned to him), " par 
nobile of state vampires, it is difficult to say which of the two 
is least worthy of credit as authority. In the Prince of Peace, 
his amour propre apart, I have faith, for I knew him inti- 
mately. Whatever errors belonged to his incompetency as 
statesman, he was honest, frank, and loyal, and his amiable 
character had given to him popularity (the plebs there not 
i j being qualified censors of administrative faults), but for the 
influence and intrigues of the grandees, into whose ranks he 
had hecxi foisted. If it is in public as in domestic aff'airs, that 
a favorite has no friends, much less has he when his ascen- 
VoL. III. — 19 



I 



290 SPAIN. 

dancj humiliates, whilst usurping the hereditary authority and 
influence of the upper orders." 

So jealous is Spanish independence of foreign help, that 
General Spencer and the English troops despatched from Gib- 
raltar to Cadiz (with whom were the two Swiss regiments of 
De "VYatteville and Meuron, soon after employed in Canada) 
were not allowed to land, but obliged to go to Portugal ; and 
when Lord Collingwood, with an English fleet, hastened to 
ofler their services for the capture of the five French ships of 
the line near Cadiz, under Admiral Rosilly, the Spanish com- 
mander at Cadiz rejected the English co-operation, and com- 
pelled the French fleet to surrender to Spaniards alone. At 
the same time the Duke of Orleans (Louis Philippe), landing 
at Cadiz to obtain a command which had been promised to him 
in the Spanish forces, was not only peremptorily refused, but 
ordered to leave Spain forthwith, as he was forced to do. 
Neither English reinforcement, nor even Bourbon French 
command, did the Spanish authorities desire, except in funds 
and food, to enable them to resist the French invasion. Eng- 
lish participation in the war began in Portugal, where the 
French army under Junot capitulated. 

England did all she could to realize Pitt's prediction. On 
the same day that Napoleon proclaimed Joseph at Bayonne, 
7th June, 1808, an agent from the province of Asturias was 
warmly welcomed in London by the minister. Canning, the 
parliament, and the people. There Wellington, animated by 
recollections of Pitt's description of Spanish nationality, began 
his victorious career, by a long succession of triumphs over the 
French, to dethrone, not only King Joseph in Madrid, but the 
Emperor Napoleon in Paris ; to which result their Spanish 
invasion largely contributed. 

Numerous works, Spanish, French and English, by partakers 
in it, describe the war in Spain, from 1808 to 1813, which my 
Sketch need not dwell upon ; but, briefly noticing its political 
and moral results, cross the Atlantic with them, and present 
its greatest reaction, the emancipation of Spanish America 
from three hundred years of the strictest colonial servitude. 
Merely personal and dynastic interests, both Bourbon and Bo- 



SPANISH AMERICA. 291 

naparte, are insignificant, compared with those great political 
and moral consequences. The provincial juntas soon relin- 
quished part of their national powers to a central junta, 
charged with the general welfare, whose manifesto, issued on 
the 28th of October, 1809, from Seville, truly premised that, 
by a combination of events, it seemed good to Providence that, 
in the terrible crisis, Spain should not advance a single step 
towards independence, without advancing one towards liberty. 
The- stagnant, filthy pools in which the Spanish government 
wallowed, required a foreign and a giant hand to purify them. 
Disastrous as Napoleon's violence was to him and his family, it 
was necessary and beneficial to Spain. Provincial produced 
national agitation ; and, in the midst of many French victories, 
not only was Joseph monarch of no more than where and while 
his armies of strangers were stationed, but competition between 
him and the juntas arose for popular favor, which soon restored, 
for the Spanish people, their antiquated representative govern- 
ment, much improved. In that contest of concession, all 
Spain, European, American, Asiatic, and African, was invited 
to elect deputies to a Cortes, which, on the 24th of September, 
1810, was installed at Cadiz, when that beautiful city was the 
only sanctuary of Spanish independence from subjugation. 
All the rest of Spain was, for the moment, overrun by the 
French, the bombardment by whose forces besieging Cadiz, 
answered the cannon within its walls, saluting the inaugura- 
tion of a body, whose dedication to free discussion more than 
repaid all the sufferings of all the conflict. For neither a 
Bourbon king nor a good king, but for a prisoner in France, 
who represented their established chief magistracy, the Cortes 
wisely and bravely swore allegiance to Ferdinand. Cadiz then, 
and Moscow, two years afterwards, in flames lighted by Rus- 
sian bands, outshone Paris, when Fouche, Lafayette, and 
others, surrendered their capital, their chief magistrate, and 
their country, to conquerors, who inflicted a restoration worse 
than revolution. 

In that concession to popular favor, to which every govern- 
ment in trouble resorts, the Cortes far outwent King Joseph. 
By the constitution which he granted, the Cortes was not a 



292 SPAIN. 

dispenser of wholesome public sentiment, but a registry for 
royal decrees. Its sessions were to be secret. Whereas those 
of the Spanish Cortes were open, like Parliament and Con- 
gress. Joseph's constitution merely promised fixture freedom 
of the press. But the Spanish Cortes, on motio^ of Augustin 
Arguelles, granted it at once and unreservedly ; so that the 
public journals of Cadiz proclaimed to all Spain and the world, 
that word of patriotic liberty, which is more potent than the 
sword of despotism. Various modifications of constitutional 
freedom and representative government have since followed 
those concessions of the Spanish Cortes. The church has been 
deprived of most of its inordinate control, for Avhich reform 
Spain is mainly indebted to the Bonapartes, who found among 
the Spanish clergy great numbers of protestants against the 
foreign influence of the Pope and the abuses of the Inquisition. 
The State of Spain gained, from its Bourbon monarchs con- 
tending with Bonaparte, political reforms which range it, since 
the French invasion, among the representative governments of 
Europe. Begeneration of Spain, proclaimed by Joseph Bona- 
parte as the motive of his reign, resulted from the attempts, 
not indeed as he and Napoleon anticipated, but to an extent 
which more than redeems all it cost. 

But it is Spanish America where the results have been most 
signal and momentous. King Joseph hastened to despatch 
agents over the Atlantic, to invite adhesion to his government ; 
five of whom reached their destination, but none were received 
with favor, and one was executed in Cuba. At the same time, 
the Spanish patriots, as they were called, availed themselves of 
English profiers of vessels to reach America, without loss of 
time, by prosperous voyages ; on whose arrival, bursts of 
unanimous attachment to the mother country, and indignation 
against its French invaders, broke forth from all parts of 
Spanish America. Buenos Ayres, Peru, Chili, New Grenada, 
Mexico, Florida, the islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Spanish 
part of St. Domingo, at once proclaimed their adhesion to the 
imprisoned King Ferdinand. Never did so many people, in 
such remote and distant parts of the world, all at once rise up 
together in glorious and zealous communion of patriotism. 



SPANISH AMERICA. 293 

Spanisb-American independence had been long prepared by 
many causes. Fourteen millions of people in Spanish South 
America, seven millions in Mexico, with some more in Cuba, 
Porto Rico, the Spanish part of St. Domingo, and Florida, 
■were too many to be held in servitude by thirteen millions of 
Spaniards in another hemisphere, whose policy and methods 
of colonial government were contrary to all modern ideas of ' 
political economy and commercial welfare. Not only was all| 
,the commerce of the exuberant Spanish colonies confined toj 
Spain alone, but to one port in Spain — Seville or Cadiz. Not 
only were all the public offices in the colonies filled by Euro- 
pean Spaniards, but many of them were needy adventurers, 
commissioned to repair broken fortunes by rapacity and op- 
pression, against whose extortions complaint was worse than 
useless, for it was dangerous. After the French invasion of 
Spain, the crowds of such odious taskmasters increased by its 
convulsions. Such usages were not, however, peculiar to Spa- 
nish colonial government, but common to all European coun- 
tries having American colonies ; prevalent in Canada, under 
British rule, till very lately. The independence and rapid 
development of this country, the French Revolution and its 
vast influences, commercial restrictions, American exclusion 
from office, all combined to inspire the Spanish-American 
Creoles with hopes and plans of emancipation. As soon as 
war was declared between Spain, as the ally of France, and 
England, in 1T9G, Miranda, a native of Venezuela, with a 
• Spaniard named Picornel, attempted revolution at Caraccas, 
which failed, Humboldt said, because then the opinion of Spa- 
nish America respecting the mother country Avas not what 
French and English books had taught in the capital of Mexico. 
But those lessons were abroad throughout America ; and when 
' ii the French invaded and apparently conquered Spain, in 
*' i[ 1808-9-10, French conquests in Spain rendered it necessary 
j! that American Spaniards should take care of themselves. 
^'i' Although colonists seemed to have no option but between inde- 
'°l{pendence and submission to French government, still, when 
"P'i setting up for themselves, far from declaring war against, they 
proclaimed fraternization with Spain, allegiance to Ferdinand 



29-4 SPANISH AMERICA. 

as their lawful sovereign, and implacable hostility to his French 
conqueror and jailor. 

It was not till the Bourbons reigned in Spain that her Spa- 
nish colonies were treated as slaves. Charles V. had provided 
that the discoverers, settlers, and those born in America, should 
be preferred before all others for offices of state, church, and 
jui-isprudence ; that the natives should be deemed freemen and 
vassals of the crown ; the colonies an integral part of the 
Spanish monarchy ; and that no law of Spain should be bind- 
ing on the colonies unless sanctioned by their representatives, 
the Council of the Indies. Such liberal provisions might have 
prevented, at all events postponed, revolt. But cupidity, mo- 
nopoly, peculation, and extortion, triumphed over all wholesome 
regulations, and the Spanish- American proconsulates were pro- 
bably the grossest misgovernments in Christendom ; especially 
ander Charles IV., when it was said that every office in Ame- 
rica was sold. Of the one hundred and sixty viceroys preced- 
ing the revolutions, all but four were Spaniards by birth, and 
those four educated and strongly connected in Spain. The 
Creoles were therefore ripe for independence of such misgovern- 
ment when the Bonapartes gave the signal for it, by their] 
attempt to dethroile the Bourbons, whose abuses for more than| 
a century had impoverished, insulted, degraded, and outragec 
then* faithful American subjects. Yet they did not revolt 
against the Bom-bons, but against the Bonapartes ; and even-j 
tual emancipation of regions ninety-two degrees of latitude 
extent, embracing more than two millions of miles square, an( 
abounding in all the elements of national wealth, power, anc 
prosperity, except liberty and industry, is due to Spanish per- jj 
sistence, after Spain was invaded by the French, in the old 
system of colonial oppression, and Spanish endeavor to trans- 
fer the colonies to French government. 

Though fii'st tidings of that invasion was received in Ame- 
rica by one universal and unanimous acclaim of allegiance to 
the old Spanish government, yet, as its extreme follies, imbe-.i 
cility, and mismanagement became more apparent, the edu- 
cated Spaniai'ds, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, yielding to jj 
the French, and resistance to them being left as the task of'l 



SPANISH AMERICA. 295 

the common people, the great body of American Spaniards, in 
nearly every province governed by weak and unworthy Spanish 
agents, turned their attention to independence, though still 
without disloyalty to Spain. Their causes for revolt were 
much greater than those of the British-American colonies in 
1775. But as Spain, in 1808, was in trouble and war, whereas 
England, in 1775, was at peace and prosperous, it seemed to be 
befitting Spanish colonial honor not to take advantage of the 
distressed condition of the mother country, in order to throw 
her off entirely, but rather to begin the movement toward in- 
dependence by alliance offensive and defensive with Spain 
against her French invaders. Except by the people repre- 
sented by provincial assemblies, and finally by the Congress, a 
parliament called Cortez, elected by the people, which suc- 
ceeded the other concentrations of public will, Spain was feebly 
vindicated and ineificiently marshalled. The Central Junta 
was expelled from Seville, then the seat of the national govern- 
ment, by the French, who subdued all Andalusia. A regency 
which was established, proved not only incapable to govern, 
l)Ut unworthy of any confidence. On the 17th April, 1810, 
they published a royal order, throwing open the commerce of 
the colonies with foreign countries and with Europe. But as 
Cadiz, till then entitled to the monopoly of colonial trade, re- 
monstrated, not only was the royal order revoked, but it was 
denied that it had ever been granted, though it had been pub- 
lished more than a month when revoked. The regency then 
.«ent a respectable, but aged and inexperienced, commissioner, 
Cortavarria, to America, who was assisted by the Marquis of 
Casa Yrujo, former Spanish minister here, and who married in 
this country, then at Brazil, in the circulation of advice, promises, 
and caution throughout Spanish America. But the promises 
were faint, the concessions inconsiderable, and the general in- 
clination throughout nearly all the colonies for independence too 
decided to be counteracted by such means. Remote from each . 
other, and without much facility for intercourse, they neverthe- 
less agreed in desire and determination for self-government. 

On the 19th April, 1810, insurrection began at Caraccas, 
chief city of the north of South America. On the 13th May, 



296 MEXICO. 

1810, on being informed, by the arrival of an English vessel 
at Montevideo, that the .French were in possession of all An- 
dalusia, and the Central Junta driven from Seville, Buenos 
4-yi'es followed Caraccas. On the 22d July, 1810, Granada 
organized her Supreme Junta, and deposed the Spanish vice- 
roy, as Santa Fe and Quito, and all the other provinces, did 
theirs, except Peru. Excepting Peru, Cuba, and Porto Rico, 
where Spanish authority continued, and Mexico, where it tri- 
umphed over the revolt attempted, all the Spanish-American 
colonies declared their independence of Spain, but without 
hostility to her. On the contrary, their emancipation, com- 
plaining of no wrongs suffered or grievances to be redi-essed, 
predicated necessity for the colonies to take care of themselves, 
their allegiance to Ferdinand, their alliance with Spain, and 
their hostility to her French invaders. The federative govern- 
ment of Venezuela, by their manifesto, announced, that with 
a population of nine millions, and an extent of fertile territory 
superior to any empire in the Avorld, they were determined to 
submit no longer to the domination of any European or foreign 
power whatever. Loyal and faithful to a lawful government, 
while it subsisted in Spain, to save themselves from the yoke 
of the French Emperor, the Spanish provinces declared them- 
selves a free, sovereign, and independent people. The La 
Plata manifesto breathed the same spirit, about the same time. 
In Mexico, the people received news of the French invasion 
with cries of devotion to Ferdinand and resistance to Napo- 
leon. But emissaries from King Joseph, with orders from Fer- 
dinand to transfer Mexican allegiance from him to Joseph, 
■were sustained by the European Spaniards in Mexico, which 
the Creoles resisted ; resolved, as they were generall}'- through- 
out all Spanish America during the troubles of their mother 
country, to hold its American possessions for the laAvful sove- 
reigns, by whom they had been so ill treated. In Spain, the 
regency declared war against the prudent and inoffensive Ame- 
rican movement of the colonies towards independence, which, 
in the course of a few months, without concert, simultaneously 
united nearly all Spanish America to vindicate themselves from 
French dominion. The Spanish-Americans adhered to King 



SPAIN. 297 

Joseph, while the Americans persisted in loyalty to Ferdinand, 
who transferred them to Joseph. To provide against that 
strange perversion, Iturrigaray, the Viceroy of Mexico, su*^- 
gested the calling of a junta from all the Mexican provinces, 
to consist of Spaniards and Creoles, to save the country from 
civil war and French control. To prevent such an assembly, 
the Spaniards revolted against Iturrigarray, seized him on the 
night of the 15th September, 1808, and sent him to Spain. 
His successor, Vanegas, proceeding in the same course, a con- 
spiracy was organized by the clergy and lawyers throughout 
nearly all the towns of Mexico, which, being betrayed when 
about to act, produced the revolt headed by the priest Hidalgo, 
who, with a crowd of more than a hundred thousand followers, 
but nearly all without fire-arms, having not more than a thou- 
sand muskets, attacked the city of Mexico, were defeated with 
great and cruel slaughter, Hidalgo executed, and that military 
ascendancy maintained which has been ever since the curse of 
Mexico. 

Such was the state of things when the Cortez assembled at 
Cadiz, in September, 1810 ; where every one of the American 
members, and a majority of the whole body, were imbued with 
the principles of progressive free government. That great 
advance in the way of representative institutions was an early 
step of the reaction, for which Spain and mankind are indebted 
to the contest between Bourbon and Bonaparte kings, for the 
establishment of much more limited and absolute monarchy. 
From that time to this the Spanish monarchy has been a re- 
presentative government, with a legislative department, the 
antiquated Cortez, then first reinstated, and much better en- 
dowed than before that partial representation of the Spanish 
people fell into desuetude. It had been in fact nullified by 
absolute monarchy, which now depends on it for supplies, and 
is accustomed to hear the people eloquently addressed from its 
tribunal. On motion of an American member from Santa Fe 
de Bogota, the Cortez, on the 2oth September, 1810, went into 
secret session on Spanish-American affairs. Their delibera- 
tions resulted, on the 15th October, in a decree, which ecpial- 
ized the rights of the Americans with the old Spaniards, and 



298 spa:^i.;ii America. 

granted a general amnesty, -witliout restriction. Other con- 
cessions followed, from time to time, but too late to reconcile 
the mother country and colonies, after civil war among the 
colonists sprang from the war which Spain waged against her 
American adherents. European Spaniards, called loyalists, 
and American Spaniards or Creoles, styled independents and 
patriots, during several years of conflict, vicissitudes, and com- 
motions, contended for mastery. The breach continually wi- 
dened ; but, while old Spain was roused to representative 
government, the march of all Spanish America to not only 
independence, but republicanism, after the example of the 
British American colonies, was constant and irresistible. The 
general European opinion formerly, that every thing European 
degenerates in America, has undergone reversal, since the 
British colonies became independent. Freedom and repub- 
lican institutions throughout all the American hemisphere, 
except the empire of Brazil, where monarchy is much changed 
from its Portuguese establishment, are ends of infinitely greater 
importance than the wars and changes by whose means 
Bourbons and Bonapartos agitated Europe and America, 
though history dwells on the means with more gratification 
than the ends. Calm consideration and perhaps longer time 
are necessary to appreciate the American results from an 
attempt to'substitute a Bonaparte for a Bourbon on the Spa- 
nish throne. And the European means employed to eifoct 
that end are more pleasant materials for the romance of his- 
tory. But philosophy will consider Napoleon the great, and 
his august Bourbon victims as all of them mere instruments of 
overruling Providence for reforming the government of Spain 
and republicanizing that of Spanish America. Even colonized 
Ameriza was more necessary to Europe than Europe to Ame- 
rica. The precious metals which constitute European currency, 
most of the cotton which clothes Europe, iron, and other ma- 
terials of first necessity, abounding in America more than in 
Europe, sugar, coffee, and other luxuries which America has 
rendered necessaries in Europe, but more than all, self-govern- 
ment exemplified to Europe by America, have so changed the 
relations of the old world to the new, that American colonies 



KussiA. 299 

of Europe must soon cease to exist. Dependence of Europe 
on America is continually substituted for dependence of Ame- 
rica on Europe, -which is every day more felt and acknow- 
ledged. While Napoleon, by an Austrian princess corroborat- 
ing his dynasty, annexing the Papal States and Holland to 
France, by his marshals Suchet and Massena triumphing in 
Spain and Portugal, seemed to be irresistibly forcing his bro- 
ther on the Spanish throne, the Spanish provinces which 
formed the American confederation of Venezuela, in April of 
that same year, 1810, set up a government to endure, in a 
country to prosper, long after the vast empire of a modern 
Charlemagne crumbled to ruins. 

Invasion of Russia, superadded to that of Spain, was war- 
fare vaster than the modern Charlemagne could compass. 
The six weeks lost by loitering at Moscow, coaxing peace, let 
loose the severities of a premature northern winter, to destroy 
his army. Next spring, the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, 
witli forces replenished by young conscripts, preluded the 
armistice of Plesswitz, pernicious, like the delay at Moscow. 
Napoleon's naked sword, never parried, was foiled, in the scab- 
bard, by Metternich's pen. King Joseph's total defeat at Yit- 
toria, on the 21st of June, 1813, while Napoleon was deluded 
by the Congress of Prague he solicited at Dresden, was a 
knell rung for all hi^ allies to join his enemies. And his fall 
was as rapid as his rise. The sixth coalition organized for his 
overthrow consisted of potentates, all of them as rapacious as 
he of aggrandisement. Austria made war on him for Italy, 
Prussia for Hanover, Spain threatened it, Russia waged it for 
Poland, Sweden for Norway, England for the dominion of the 
seas and large parts of the earth. They had all, except Eng- 
land, acknowledged his brother as King of Spain, his brother- 
in-law as King of Naples, another brother as King of West- 
phalia, a sister as sovereign of Tuscany, and a step-son as 
'\''iceroy of Italy. But if they were aggressors, the end 
crowned their means with the justification of success. From 
the rupture of the peace of Amiens, which was entirely an 
English act, to the Congress of Vienna, when the spoils of the 
French Empire were distributed, it would not bo easy to say 



300 NAPOLEON DEFEATED. 

•which government was most aggressive and grasping. Napo- 
leon's seizure of Spain was not more unjustifiable than the 
English bombardment of Copenhagen and capture of the 
Danish fleet there. The British orders in Council, French 
Berlin and Milan decrees, which forced this country into the 
general conflagration of hostiUties, were all stupendous infrac- 
tions of right. But Bonaparte's sudden and violent apparition 
in all these transactions, enabled what was called legitimate 
government to denounce him, when overthrown, as chief wrong- 
doer. All Europe, most of America, some of Africa and Asia, 
were involved in perpetual conflict on his account. When the 
monarchs were all defeated, and their capitals captured by him, 
as a last resort, they called in the people to their rescue, and 
promised them, for their help, a share in government. Napo- 
leon then confessed to his confidants that his dictatorship had 
been continued too long. A million of men, in arms, chased 
him from Leipsic to Paris ; their principal chief, the Emperor 
Alexander, proclaiming that Napoleon alone was their object, 
and should be their only victim, without dismemberment or 
even degradation of France. Two other eminent French 
generals accompanied the invaders ; and though Moreau was 
killed, Bernadotte survived to be crowned Emperor of the 
French, if Alexander could efiect his substitution for Napoleon. 
When the invaders broke through Switzerland, and otherwise 
into France, German monarchy and aristocracy were enthusi- 
•astically supported by democracy, and Napoleon's best, if not 
only chance, was to let loose the French democracy against 
that of Germany. 

But though never a sanguinary ruler, delighting in no blood- 
shed but that of battle, and having established equality as the 
basis of his sovereignty, he had, in eight years of military 
domination, entirely suppressed liberty ; and returned to Pa- 
ris, the defeated and most formidable despot in the world. 
The press was enslaved. A terrible police prevailed. The 
only public bodies established by the constitution, the Senate, 
the Council of State, and the Legislature, were all reduced by 
him to mere silent registries of his imperial will. On the 19th 
of August, 1807, discussion, till then lawful and usual, was 



fvAPOLEOX DEFEATED. 301 

interdicted in the Legislature by a decree of the Senate. 
During several years, there was no public sentiment but what 
the Emperor allowed or fabricated. When driven back to 
Paris, to call for the si)irit and resources of the nation, pur- 
sued by the roused people of other nations, the French mo- 
narch not only persisted in refusing, but aggravated his exclu- 
sion of the community from all part in public affairs ; though 
such was not merely his fame, but his popularity, that not a 
French province, town, or place, rose against him. All 
France, except his marshals and ministers, remained faithful to 
his tyrannical government ; to his, which was their great glory ; 
to his person, as their chosen representative of the nation. 
If he had permitted Paris, Lyons, other great towns and the 
rural population every where to be armed and fight, they would 
have defended him from the foreigners with invincible ardor. 
If he had trusted them, they would not have suffered him to 
be dethroned. Next year, on his return from Elba, he prof- 
fered popular rights, when it was too late. In 1813, he not 
only withheld and refused them, but spurned, insulted, and 
abused their representatives in the government. 

His sole reliance was military and arbitrary — on his armies 
and himself. With a hundred thousand troops shut up, far 
from France, in various German garrisons, ninety thousand in 
Spain, and but about sixty thousand at his own command in 
France, long estranged from all popular reliances, he trusted to 
those alone who surrounded, flattered, betrayed and surrendered 
him. The people would never have deserted him. They never 
did. The Boui'bons, insignificant and contemptible competi- 
tors, had scarcely any supporters but the English government ; 
next to none in France ; none at all in the armies led by the 
Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and Prince Swartzenburg. , 
Napoleon was dethroned by his own servants, his family kings, 
marshals and ministers ; those whom, as he truly said, he had 
gorged with wealth and honors. Truce was scarcely an- 
nounced, on the 10th of August, 1813, when, on the 15th of 
that month, began that series of desertions, by his military 
and royal creatures, which, from Jomini to Bourmont, con- 
tinually undermined a throne, by its upstart occupant as con- 



302 NAPOLEON DESERTED., 

stantly denied popular support. Jomini, the Swiss adjutant- 
general of Ney's corps, concentrating at Lignitz, in Ger- 
many, was the first to go over to the enemy, seduced by an 
aid-de-camp of the Emperor Alexander. A much more im- 
portant personage, Murat, the King of Naples, soon followed. 
Erom the disasters in Russia, apprehending that his imperial 
patron's throne was in danger, Murat deserted his post in the 
retreat from Moscow, and withdrew to Naples, to intrigue with 
the British and Austrian governments for his defection from 
Napoleon, and reward by his enemies. After the battles of 
Lutzen and Bautzen, next year, Napoleon recalled him to 
resume command of the French cavalry. Napoleon's disasters 
recommenced with the capture of Vandamme and his force at 
Culm, a large, handsome, rough Brabant soldier, whom we had 
in this country. The immense defeat of the French at Leipsic 
was caused by whole corps of Saxon and Wirtemburg troops 
deserting from the French to their enemies, in the heat of the 
battle. Bernadotte, Joseph Bonaparte's brother-in-law, in- 
debted for his Swedish crown princedom to Napoleon, was 
maintained in that position by the coalesced monarchs : and 
why should not another still nearer connexion of the Bonaparte 
family, in the same way, try to secure his Sicilian throne ? 
King Murat's Grand Equerry, the Duke of Rocca Romana, 
was despatched from Naples, where Fouche was, to Murat's 
head-quarters ; and on Napoleon's retreat from Germany to 
France, Murat again deserted, hastened to Naples, and con- 
summated his alliance with the allies, by treaties, in January, 
1814; one with Austria, another with England. By occupy- 
ing the papal states, commanded by General Miollis, long an 
inhabitant of this country, Murat gave the most fatal blow to 
his brother-in-law's empire, reign and dynasty ; for Avhich royal 
high treason, his punishment was severely condign. After 
Napoleon's second abdication and final dethronement, next 
year^ his King of Naples was driven from the throne by the 
same King Ferdinand whom Joseph had expelled from it in 
1806. Murat absconded, lurking through various hiding-places 
in France, Corsica and Sicily ; the royal and brilliant cox- 
comb, long as remarkable for fantastic foppery of dress as for 



BONAPARTE KINGS. 303 

romantic valor, concealing his handsome person under many 
strange disguises, lived in caverns and holes covered with 
branches, and fled nightly from one hiding-place to another, 
till betrayed, at last, by his own aid-de-camp, he was tried by 
a court-martial, consisting of officers of his own creation, and 
shot, on the 13th of October, 1815, by force of one of the 
most atrocious of all the Bourbon royal barbarities. King 
Ferdinand's order, convoking the court-martial to try King 
]Murat, directed that no more than half an hour should be 
allowed the condemned for religious cpnsolation ; which infernal 
anticipation of the judgment exceeds, in Bourbon barbarity, 
the worst cruelty ever even imputed to Bonaparte. One of 
the certainly precipitate executioners of the Duke of Enghein, 
?ilurat's sacrifice surpassed that of the Bourbon prince in ig- 
nominous and remorseless despatch. 

The first throne on which Napoleon seated a brother, fell by 
a brother-in-law's preference of a throne to his brother. 

About the time when King Murat, by reaction of traitorous 
defection, restored that throne to the least respectable of the 
many dethroned Bourbons, another of Napoleon's family 
thrones fell, in an instant, like a card-house. A party of Cos- 
sacks unexpectedly galloped into Cassel, capital of the king- 
dom of Westphalia ; whence King Jerome, completely surprised 
and overpowered, instantly fled, and his kingdom of "Westphalia 
vanished in a day, without a struggle. Not long after, what 
remained in Holland of King Louis's kingdom was, by the 
Dutch, restored to the Prince of Orange, in spite of Louis's 
despised protest that it belonged to the son in whose favor he 
abdicated. Eliza and her husband were soon stripped of their 
Tuscan principality. On the 11th of December, 1813, Ferdi- 
nand was released from his several years' imprisonment at Tal- 
leyrand's country residence, A^alencay, and restored to Spain, 
of which Joseph resigned the kingdom. Thus, in a short time. 
Napoleon's family crowns were all wrested from him, and his 
vast empire reduced to Fraftce, invaded by a million of exas- 
]icrated enemies to dethrone him. As a military chieftain, his 
efforts to prevent that result were prodigious ; but so much at 
variance with the free spirit which, in 1789, arose in France, 



304 NAPOLEON. 

and, in 1799, put him at the head of the government, that he 
proved a blind instrument of reviving, by reaction, the freedom 
he p^t, but could not keep down. 

On the 9th November, 1813, driven back to Paris, demoral- 
ized and infuriated, instead of appealing, as the monarchs of 
Germany in tribulation all had, with large entreaties and pro- 
mises, to their people for support, the French Emperor's 
address to his Council of State denounced those he had long 
stigmatized as idealogists, men thinking for themselves, to 
whom he attributed all the French calamities, and the reign 
of terror, which he abhorred as a reign of blood. The ideal- 
ogists found laAvs on dark subtleties, he said ; proclaim insur- 
rection as a duty; adulate the people by proclaiming their 
sovereignty, who are incapable of its exercise. Convoking 
the Senate and Legislative Body, in order to submit to them 
the terms of peace proposed, finding it indispensable in that 
supreme crisis to enlist popular sympathy, thereby to raise 
men and money, yet Napoleon fatally proved, what a greater 
revolutionist, Voltaire, had said, that military despotism is not 
a form, but subversion of government, which, after destroying 
every thing else, destroys itself; a colossus which falls as soon 
as its arm is no longer uplifted. Suspecting his enemies, espe- 
cially the English, of hostile designs against him personally, 
they had fixed, he said, their rendezvous at his tomb ; and, 
thinking the lion dead, every ass wanted to give him a kick. 
Talleyrand and Fouche were, as ever, principal advisers : 
Fouche objected to popular concessions, Talleyrand suggested 
dividing the coalition by offering to make the Duke of Wel- 
lington king of England. 

Commissioners, despatched into the departments to ascertain 
and rouse popular patriotism, found the people quiet and well 
disposed, but exhausted by war, and universally anxious for 
peace. If the Emperor had then conceded to the Legislature 
what, after his return from Elba, he proffered, probably the 
invaders would have been repulsed, as they were twenty years 
before, when all France rose as one man by spontaneous union 
of freemen. After two hundred and fifty-four members of the 



I 



INVASION OF FRANCE. 305 

Legislative Body from all parts of the country, fresh from the 
people, had arrived in Paris, well inclined to the Emperor, 
ardent for resistance of the enemy, but disposed to revive 
some of the long-suppressed principles of representative go- 
vernment, — though without treachery or Bourbon tendency 
among them, — Napoleon, for some time, would not let them 
assemble and organize, but kept them breathing and brooding 
discontent in the capital, agitated by hourly tidings of the ap- 
proaching enemy. When at last they were permitted to assem- 
ble, the Emperor's communication to them of the proposed 
terms of peace was reserved and unsatisfactory. In their 
>election, therefore, of the committee to report the address to 
the crown, courtiers were excluded, and men chosen of wcll- 
knoAvn independence, moderation, firmness, and patriotism; 
with whom the Emperor should have been satisfied, for they 
and their sentiments were sympathetic with popular ardor and 
national strength. France was stronger, said Regnault de St. 
Jean d'Angely, than in 1792, when the Prussian invasion was 
repelled, or in 1799, when the Russian was discomfited. Na- 
poleon had all, and more than all, the same resources in his 
hands, except the republican spirit, which alone was wanting. 

One of the members of the Legislature, Laine^ a Bourdeaux 
lawyer, known to be of republican inclinations, was, on that 
account, suspected as a revolutionist by those around the Em- 
peror's person, from whom he had contracted the unavoidable 
bad executive habit of receiving theirs as public sentiment. 
After animated discussion in committee, but not allowed public 
debate, a report was presented and adopted by the large ma- 
jority of 203 votes to 51, which entreated his imperial majesty 
to maintain the entire and constant execution of laws guaran- 
teeing to Frenchmen the rights of liberty, safety, and property, 
and to the nation the free exercise of its political rights. It 
seems incredible that such generalities, in harmless phrases, 
should have oifended and alarmed the Emperor. But, as the 
invaders Avere on their march to Paris, and, on the 31st De- 
cember, 1813, the army of Schwartzenberg broke through 
Switzerland, on its way. Napoleon summoued his council, who- 

Vol. IIL — 20 



306 NAPOLEON. 

advised that such language, at that time, was seditious. It is 
no time, said the Emperor, when the national existence is 
menaced, to talk about constitutions and the rights of the 
people. On the 31st December, 1813, therefore, the Legis- 
lature was dissolved, after three days session, and the few 
copies of the report printed for the use of the members seized 
by imperial order, and destroyed. Next day, when all the 
public authorities, as usual on the first of the year, waited on 
the sovereign, with complimentary addresses, and the Legis- 
lative Body, among the rest, presented themselves at the foot 
of the throne, the Emperor, going down from it, approaching 
and angrily accosting them, by harsh, coarse language, uttered 
in the most ofiensive manner, rejected, defied, insulted, and 
abused the popular sentiment. 

"Eleven-twelfths of you are good men, but the rest faction- 
ists," he said, fiercely. "You might have done good; you 
have done harm. I called on you to help me ; instead of 
which you comfort the foreigners. Your committee has 
been led by English agents. Your M. Laine is a bad 
fellow; the loss of two battles in France would not do as 
much mischief as his report. I needed consolation ; you 
cover me with mud. That is not the way to elevate the 
throne. What is a throne, but bits of wood covered with a 
strip of velvet? The throne is in the nation; and don't you 
know that I represent it above all — I, who have been four 
times raised to the head of it by five millions of votes? I 
represent it with a title. You have none ; you are but repre- 
sentatives of the departments. Is this the time for your re- 
monstrances, when two hundred thousand Cossacks are cross- 
ing the frontiers? Is this the time to talk of individual 
liberty, when the national liberty is at stake? Y'our ideal-, 
ogues demand guarantees against power, when France wants j 
them only against the enemy. If not satisfied with the con- 
stitution, you should have demanded another four months \ 
ago; or two years after we get peace. Why talk before all] 
Europe of domestic grievances ? Dirty clothes should be 
washed at home. You want to imitate the Constituent As-j 



INVASION OF FRANCE. 307 

sembly, and make a revolution. But I shall not imitate the 
king that then was ; I'd rather abandon the throne, and make 
one of the sovereign people, than be a king-slave." 

Such vulgar and insulting treatment was more offensive than 
oppression, for people will bear that rather than insult. With 
transcendant talents, gencrallj polite and captivating manners, 
on that occasion, irritated, mortified, and alarmed beyond en- 
durance or acknowledgment. Napoleon iiHayed the tyrant even 
more than he had ever really performed it. Several men of 
note, one of them a member of the Legislature, representing 
the Geneva district, were ordered to leave his presence ; but 
Laine, the chief author of the legislative report which gave so 
much offence, who, though advised not to venture into the 
Emperor's presence, manfully went, was not noticed. Not a 
word of reproach was addressed to him by the mighty master, 
maddened by reverses, after years of infatuating success, 
power, and adulation. If, as he began his mad speech by 
saying, eleven-twelfths of the Legislature were good men, 
what folly to insult them all by passionate reproaches, which 
were intended but for a small fraction ! The argument of the 
imperial invective, no doubt premeditated, though spoken has- 
tily, is forcible that the crisis was fitter for action than remon- 
strance. But when has liberty a chance for recovery from 
oppression, except in such conjunctures, as next year Napo- 
leon, attempting the restoration of his reign, conceded. In 
1814, his iron will, inflamed by pride and passion to white 
heat, struck from the heart eloquent reproach, which his own 
cooler judgment, in 1815, condemned. Impolitic and undig- 
nified ebullition of temper, however, indicative of the genius 
which ruled most of the world, chastened by a year's banish- 
ment from power, was followed by competition between Napo- 
leon and Louis XVIIL, bidding concessions for a crown, which 
reconstructed gradually the foundations laid in 1789. 

In a few days after that outbreak the Emperor left Paris, 
to take command of his army for the defence of France, when 
the number and proportions of the hostile forces were thus 
enumerated : 



308 INVASION OF FEANCE. 

Allied army under Schwartzenberg 190,000 

Army of Silesia, under Blucher 160,000 

Army of the North, under Bernadotte 130,000 

Dutch corps, 12,000 ; English in Belgium 8,000 

German reserve forming 80,000 

Austrian reserve forming on the Inn 50,000 

Russian reserve forming in Poland 60,000 

Troops of the Allies blockading French garrisons in various 

places 100,000 

Austrian army in Italy under Bellegarde 70,000 

English, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilians, and Sardinians, under 

Wellington 140,000 

1,000,000 

A million of regular soldiers, besides the German militia 
(landwehr) and mass of armed levies of peasants and towns- 
people (landstrum), the Spanish guerrillas, and other irregular 
forces, all of which were extremely injurious to the retreating 
French. And from this enumeration are excluded, also, 
Murat's army of 25,000 Neapolitans, in the Papal States, 
and a body of 15,000 Sicilians, under the English. 

To oppose such hordes of enemies. Napoleon had not more 
than 350,000 soldiers ; of whom scarce 100,000 were at his 
disposition. 100,000 were shut up in various distant for- 
tresses ; 90,000 were in Spain, under Soult and Suchet; 
50,000 in Italy, under Eugene Beauharnois ; leaving about 
120,000 under Marshals Macdonald, Marmont, Mortier, Vic- 
tor, Ney, and Augereau, in various parts of France, of which 
the Emperor never had more than 60,000 together, under his 
immediate command. 

After a short winter campaign, in which his military supe- 
riority to all other commanders was more than ever signalized, 
with scarcely more than one man to five, he defeated the Rus- 
sians under Sacken, the Prussians under Blucher, and the 
Austrians under Schwartzenberg, in several bloody battles, in 
which nothing was more remarkable than the heroic courage 
and devotion of the fresh, half-armed recruits and national 
guards ; proving that if the whole population had been called 
out, they would have nobly contested every inch of ground, and 
probably saved the master afraid to trust them, fighting, himself, 



i 



INVASION OF FRANCE. 309 

indeed, like a lion at bav, joining in the charges, exposing his 
person to every risk, and fulfilling all the duties of a common 
soldier as well as great captain. At last, on the 5th March, 
1814, an imperial decree, dated at Fismes, authorized, what 
ought to have been invoked long before, the whole population 
of France to arm, sound the tocsin, ransack the woods, cut 
down the bridges, barricade the roads, and fall on the invaders 
wherever found. Instead of exclusive reliance on enriched 
marshals, ministers, and flatterers, jaded and dispirited sol- 
diers, Napoleon at last, when too late, recurred to the patriotic 
enthusiasm of the people, and proclaimed their sovereignty, 
Avho were so lately declared incapable of its exercise. 

On the 25th January, 1 814, when he left Paris to take com- 
mand of his army, the Emperor was saluted, on the way to 
head-quarters, by continual cheers for himself, and cries of 
" Down with the consolidated taxes." For the French people, 
oppressed by despotic government, and delighted by its prodi- 
gious glory, were nevertheless much more alive to their rights, 
liberties, and welfare, than is commonly acknowledged by those 
English and even French accounts which characterize them to 
us Americans. Throughout the last few days of January, and 
all February, battles and negotiations succeeded each other 
rapidly, terms of peace or truce varying from day to day, ac- 
cording to the events of the conflict, most of the battles being 
favorable to the French. Troops that had never seen service, 
just recruited, not clothed, hardly armed, some of them Ven- 
deans, fought with a cheerful and admirable spirit, under the 
Emperor with whom their love of country was associated. 
Schwartzenberg, Blucher, Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, 
were worsted, and their leaders driven back much discouraged, 
till, on the 1st of March, 1814, at Chaumont, Lord Castle- 
reagh, by treaty, doubled the subsidies, raised to more than 
twenty millions of dollars a year, for the three great conti- 
nental stipendiaries, who therefore bound themselves, the 
, whole four to each other, to keep up large armies, prosecute 
^the war, and make no peace till France was reduced to the 
, limits of 1789. Soon after that time negotiation ceased with 
.Napoleon ; the scabbards on both sides were thrown away, and 



I 



310 FRANCE INVADED. 

tlio immense army of invasion was united to move tovrard 
Paris. Still, as soon as they got together, the leaders hesi- 
tated, and during near two days the question was discussed, 
whether to advance or retreat. The Austrian generalissimo, 
Schwartzenberg, and the King of Prussia were for retreating, 
the Emperor Alexander strenuous for advancing. The Empe- 
ror of Austria withdrew from the army, with only two attend- 
ants, and retired to the south of France, fearful not only of 
the event, but whether he should, if he could, overthrow his 
daughter's husband and grandson's father. Sir Robert Wilson 
said the Allies found themselves in a vicious circle, from which 
it was impossible to escape, unless defection came to their 
relief; obliged to retire, yet unable to retreat; and defection 
took place when Bonaparte seemed to be beyond the reach of 
fortune. 

By their march upon Paris, when resolved upon. Napoleon's 
superior officers were dismayed, as their hesitating assailants 
had been. Paris was their country, their palladium. Their 
gorgeous palaces and gilded halls ; their honors, titles, and 
opulence ; their great master's bounties, their luxuries, plea- 
sures, and vanity, were Parisian. As Napoleon's family 
thrones in Naples, Westphalia, and Spain, were primary 
causes of his ruin, so the titles, riches, and splendors, with 
which he surrounded his own throne by upstarts, were fatal 
impulses of his ruin's sudden and rapid consummation. Nei- 
ther soldiery nor people deserted or betrayed the commander 
whom a bastard aristocracy sacrificed to save themselves. 
Several days were lost in reasoning with these remonstrants, 
whom then he dared not overrule, as he did the Legislative 
Body. If he had rebuked and dismissed the aristocracy of 
his monarchy as he did the representatives of the democracy, 
he might have rescued France and his family from impending 
ruin. But the only sentiment besides his own that he ever 
heard was that of the courtiers he kept at his footstool ; and 
it is a fact of great significance, that from the first step to the 
last of his downfal, no great man of his empire, without regard 
to himself, strove to save its founder. Individual plebeians 
might have been as selfish or worse, but the mass had no mo- 



FRANCE INVADED. 311 

tive except to save the country, -wliicli was tliemsclves. Xa- 
poleon's bold and wise plan was to lead his sixty thousand men 
into Germany. " I am as near Munich," said he, " as they 
are to Paris." A hundred thousand veteran French troops 
might have joined him from German garrisons ; Berlin and 
Vienna lay unprotected, at his mercy. Soult and Suchez 
could bring ninety thousand from Spain, to employ "Welling- 
ton ; Eugene Beauharnois twenty-five thousand from Italy. 
But the Emperor's plans were frustrated, when disarmed 
by his superior officers, who almost revolted against marching 
anywhere, but to rescue their homes and preserve their esta- 
blishments. By their complaints and remonstrances, after 
several days lost in dealing with, not venturing to overrule 
them, he was constrained to follow the allied armies toward 
Paris, after they had got some days march ahead of him. 
Before he could reach Paris, his lieutenant, Joseph, as he 
considered by the Emperor's direction, sent the Empress and 
her son out of Paris, and authorized Marshals Marmont and 
Mortier, who commanded there, to capitulate, on the afternoon 
of the 30th March, 1814. 

There were not twenty-five thousand armed men, regulars 
and irregulars, all told, for the defence of Paris, agaii^st at 
least five times that number of assailants. There was a defi- 
ciency of muskets, and the powder gave out. More than all, 
I am assured, by one present and familiar with all the cii'cum- 
stances of the surrender of Paris, that there was a total want 
of popular spirit to defend that capital. Marmont, Avhose 
most glorious exploits were performed there, and Mortier, asso- 
ciated with him in command, did all that the bravest soldier- 
ship could, destroyed, the French say, more of the allied 
troops, killed, wounded, or captured, during that attack, than 
the w^hole French force engaged, viz., thirteen or fourteen 
thousand men. The battle of Paris, in March, resembled, in 
some respects, the battle of Bladensburg, in August of that 
year. The capital of the best-armed and most martial nation 
in the world was, relatively, as ill provided for resistance, 
either materially or in spirit, as that of the least belligerent or 
prepared people. Paris was as little fortified as Washington. 



312 PARIS SUrvREXDERED. 

Trifling circumstances might have defeated the allies at Paris, 
and the English at Washington. Joseph Bonaparte in many 
battles, Jerome at "Waterloo, proved that no bodily fear 
deterred them from heroic eiForts. Yet I wish I could vindi- 
cate them, particularly the Emperor's lieutenant, Joseph, from 
hasty and injudicious, certainly unfortunate, capitulation. At 
the meeting of Council, on the night of the 28th of JMarch, 
1814, after nearly all present spoke against the Empress- 
Regent, Maria Louisa, with her son, leaving Paris, against 
which even Talleyrand protested, Joseph at last produced and 
read the Emperor's letter of the 16th of March, then two 
weeks old, commanding that unfortunate evacuation. Jo- 
seph, throughout his life, had always yielded implicit, almost 
passive obedience to his younger brother Napoleon. Maria 
Louisa, a young wife, without decision of character, was 
- equally submissive. With American ideas of personal inde- 
• pendence, French impressions seem strange, of the absolute 
necessity of passive obedience. That Joseph, himself, deemed 
it injudicious, was proved by his and Cambaceres following the 
Empress, after the Council broke up, at two o'clock at night, 
into her apartment, requesting her to take the responsibility 
of disobeying her husband's order, which she naturally and 
justifiably declined doing ; but with manifest anxiety that they 
should advise it, when she would have readily consented, on 
their responsibility. Clarke, the minister of war, one of the 
Emperor's least meritorious dukes (of Feltre), urged her going, 
even before Joseph produced his brother's fatal order : from 
that time till she at last went, continually sending repeated 
messages that she had not a moment to lose ; her departure or 
capture by the Cossacks being the only alternatives. As she 
went, the little King of Rome betrayed his infant resistance 
by loud cries, and clinging to the stair-way, from which it was 
necessary to force his grasp. A disconsolate cavalcade of 
coaches, with the imperial arms on their pannels, moved 
through the streets in lugubrious silence, when any rude 
patriot of the common people, cutting a trace of the Empress's 
carriage, might have saved the Empire. Not the least of the 
errors of that affrighted escape, was detaching more than two 



PARIS SURRENDERED. 313 

thousand of the best troops, when there were altogether but 
thirteen or fourteen thousand for the defence of Paris, taken 
from that duty to escort the flying Empress, by vain parade, 
wholly useless, as the escort was not one to fifty of the ene- 
mies in arms surrounding the fugitives. 

Joseph has been, and ever will be, much censured for that 
retreat. I wish it were possible to defend his unfortunate 
evacuation of Madrid, as King of Spain, in 1808, and of Paris, 
as Licutcnant-General of France, in 1814. As resolute a man 
as Napoleon, and on the occasion of his frustrated attempt to 
escape to America, in 1815, evincing calmer fortitude, Joseph 
had been so long broke to obey his younger brother, that he 
seemed incapable of self-reliance. If the Emperor's order 
had been to stay, Joseph would have done so at all hazards. 
As it was, to save the King of Rome (the young Astyanax, as 
his father's letter called the child), his uncle took him away, at 
the risk of an Empire's ruin. 

A publication at Paris, in 1844, for which Joseph's family 
furnished the documents and suggestions, in order to defend 
him from censure for precipitate abandonment of that capital, 
quotes from Meneval, his constant, confidential, and respectable 
adherent, that the Emperor afterwards complained that his 
order was too rigorously construed, as the execution of it was, 
of course, subject to circumstances, which had changed since 
the time when he gave it. Never was commander less disposed 
to unkind or ungenerous posterior judgments on his subor- 
dinates. Yet to Napoleon's explicit condemnation of Joseph's 
hasty surrender, must be added what Meneval adds, that it is 
not at all to be doubted that the presence of the Empress at 
Paris might have defeated culpable intrigues, and given the 
Emperor time to arrive to the succor of the capital, by pre- 
venting the enemy, as the private council perceived, and the 
regent and her council comprehended. But there was de- 
plorable obsequiousness to the Emperor's order, Avhich, he said 
himself, was not his will, under the altered circumstances. 
Meneval further adds, however, "but who would have dared 
to contravene such formal orders, which, during fifteen daj^s 
posterior to them, the Emperor neither modified nor ^veak- 



314 KAPOLEON. 

ened?" Like Grouchy 's fatal inaction at Wavre, when his 
movement toward AYaterloo was indispensably dictated by cir- 
cumstances enough to control any prior order, Joseph's re- 
maining with the Empress and her son at Paris, was com- 
manded by ruling occurrences, posterior to the Emperor's 
orders, which, moreover, did not prescribe flight from the 
capital as the only or best method of safety. When all the 
preparations were made, and the poor distracted Empress, in 
an agony of distress, averse to depart, and lingering, in hopes 
of something to prevent it, hesitated still, the officers of the 
National Guard, on duty at the Tuileries, together with some 
officers of the regular army, rushed into her apartment, en- 
treating her not to leave Paris, promising so save her harmless. 
But Clarke's reiterated urgency, and Joseph's unlucky sub- 
mission to the Emperor, hurried the mother and child away ; 
who, within a fortnight, were captured by the very Cossacks 
from whom the Minister of War, and Lieutenant-General of 
the Empire unwisely and vainly attempted to save them. 

The Empress and King of Rome, kept in Paris, might have 
saved the Empire. The townsfolk, instead of being deserted 
and discouraged by their leaders, could, perhaps, have been 
roused to desperate efforts of resistance. It was the crisis, the 
few minutes, on which nearly every thing mostly depends. 
Less than one day brought the Emperor, with forty thousand 
soldiers, to the relief of Paris. His arrival there, instead of 
afterwards at Fontainebleau, would have rendered Mai-mont's 
defection impracticable, and prevented the successful move- 
ments of all traitors, especially Bourbon partisans. Paris 
might, perhaps, have been injured, possibly sacked, or burned. 
But that calamity would have been much less for the country 
than its capitulation. The bloodiest battle, with any amount 
of desolation, would have cost France less in money, in life, 
and in power, not to mention honor, than the surrender which 
Joseph unhappily authorized. On such occasions, princes, 
empresses, nobles, and persons of property, sometimes prove 
public hindrances and misfortunes. Would even Napoleon 
himself, then no longer the General Bonaparte who once 
braved all risks and consequences, have proved barbarian 



NAPOLEON. 315 

enough to destroy tlie magnificent metropolis of France ? 
Such half-civilized patriots as long defended Saragossa, and 
snatched Moscow, hy universal conflagration, from French 
captors, probably did not exist at Paris. History teaches few 
more impressive lessons than that, as war is sometimes the 
only way to peace, so, to prevent the capture of a capital city 
by enemies, its destruction, by the country it represents, may 
be a prudent and economical resort. Capitulation often costs 
more than destruction. If the middle classes of Paris, repre- 
senting property, deterred the poorer classes, with nothing 
but life to lose, from reckless resistance, and prevailed on Mar- 
mont to surrender, as was said to be the case, they incurred 
more national debt, and sacrificed more French life, than would 
have resulted from sacrifice of that splendid city. Seldom, if 
ever, are great cities more injurious to countries than when, 
like Paris, by either revolutions or capitulations, ^their influence 
afiects the national destiny. Not long after Paris was surren- 
dered to the repeated revolutions which ensued royal resto- 
rations, Jackson was resolved to lay New Orleans in ashes, 
rather than let enemies take it. Honest and respectable per- 
sons opposed his desperate resort, with good motives, reckon- 
ing capitulation safer than destruction. But were they not in 
error ? To recapture New Orleans would have cost much more 
bloodshed and treasure than to rebuild it after being burned. 
And if Paris had been destroyed, sober historical consideration 
of that dreadful emergency may convince us that, on such 
occasions, like martial law, it is safer to risk all, and endure 
all, than to lay all at a captor's feet. 

After having been a whole week without tidings from Paris, 
or Paris from him, the Emperor, on the 28th March, 1814, 
received a message from his Postmaster-General, Lavallette, 
that his majesty's immediate presence at his capital was indis- 
pensable to save it from the enemy's hands. Next day he 
despatched General Dejean there to announce his speedy ar- 
rival ; who, on the 31st, delivered the Emperor's message to 
Joseph. On the 30th, Berthier despatched another messenger, 
General Girardin, to Paris, to repeat the assurance of the Empe- 
ror's prompt arrival there. That day, after a few hours' repose, 



316 NAPOLEON. 

the Emperor, in a light carriage, almost alone, accomplished 
one hundred and twenty miles of the journej. But on the 
29th, the Empress had left Paris ; and, on the 30th, Joseph au- 
thorized Marshals Marmont and Mortier to capitulate. While 
changing horses the Emperor was apprised of the departure 
of his wife and child. Part of his troops marched near forty 
miles in one day ; but all in vain. At ten o'clock at night of 
the 30th, when nearly alone, and only the river between him 
and the enemy. Napoleon was informed that Paris had capitu- 
lated. In a fit of that irresolution which seemed to be the 
inconsistent part of his rapid, impetuous, and resolute will, he 
thereupon sent Caulaincourt to Paris to negotiate ; and, by 
five days' delay, was ruined. Procrastination at Moscom', in 
, 1812, at Dresden, in 1813, at Fontainebleau, in 1814, at Paris, 
jin 1815, and, finally, indecision at Rochefort, was fatal ele- 
iment of the impetuous nature of a wonderful man, Avhose pro- 
idigious success was mainly attributable to overpowering rapi- 
dity of thought, option, and action. But, in 1814, the 
Emperor Napoleon was no longer General Bonaparte in 1798. 
Nor was Paris Saragossa, Moscow, or New Orleans. Wealthy 
tradesmen, efi"eminate courtiers, and royal rebels to imperial 
sway, ruled the refined metropolis of Europe, instead of semi- 
barbarous disregard of property, plebeian bravery, and instinc- 
tive patriotism. Nobility, old and new, court ladies, and Bo- 
naparte princes, were unequal to a crisis, when the populace 
needed a fearless leader ; but the Emperor shrunk from arm- 
ing them with his faithful soldiers ; whom, in the mass of con- 
sternated fugitives, one female of royal blood alone dared to 
disobey, and defy fortune. Thinking probably that her con- 
nexion with kings might plead his cause, he had ordered 
Jerome's wife to remain in Paris. But she insisted, when her 
dethroned husband fled, to go with him, and abide the fallen 
fortunes of his ruined family. 

The imperial family fled to Blois, a town on the river Loire, 
south of Paris, where they tarried from the 2d to the 8th of 
April, six days, in stupor of doubt and dismay. Madame 
Mother, as the otherwise untitled parent of so many kings and 
queens was called ; Joseph, with his wife, called Queen Julia, 



MARIA LOUISA. 317 

and tlieir two daughters ; Jerome, Avitli his wife, Queen Catha- 
rine ; the dismal young Empress, a crowd of courtiers and 
noble followers, with their ineffectual military escort, lingered 
there, till she was captured by Cossacks, and the rest dispersed. 
M. Lamartine's brilliant and attractive pen egregiously misre- 
presents the parting scene at Blois, where Maria Louisa spent 
her last moments in France. My information, from higher 
and purer, however biassed, source, induces me to dwell on his 
misstatements, not so much merely to correct this one of his 
many fanciful fabrications, as to show how boldly facts are 
distorted and history falsified. The Emperor's secretary, Me- 
neval, was with the Empress at Blois, present at all the trans- 
actions M. Lamartine misrepresents, and describes them all, 
with unquestionable candor. Oral assurances from another 
respectable member of Joseph's family, then with them at 
Blois, Avith Meneval, are my authorities for discrediting detrac- 
tion, by which the bounty of royal favor, sometimes earned, 
was too often sought. Probably that charming poet never 
saw Napoleon's Austrian wife, of whom his merely romantic 
description is altogether fiction. A plump, florid, thick-lipped, 
healthy, quiet, sensual, German young woman, with neither 
personal nor intellectual attraction, he transmutes into an un- 
happy victim of vulgar Bonapartism, not long before disgust- 
ing sensuality of cohabitation with an elderly, one-eyed para- 
mour, degraded her below all sympathy. Lamartine's portrait 
of Maria Louisa, is like Burke's gorgeous delineation of her 
grand-aunt, Maria Antoinette ; neither of whom probably 
ever saw the originals, more than at a distance, and for a 
moment, but depict princesses instead of women. John 
Adams, who saw the imperious Queen of France frequently 
and near, says she was not handsome. La Fayette, who also 
knew her well, denied the chastity of an unfortunate victim, 
beautified by flatterers and the scaffold. A fat man, forty odd 
years old, when younger not amorous, inordinately ambitious, 
and always too busy for domestic recreation, wedded, not from 
love, to a girl of carnal twenty, who married him to please her 
father, without mental resources or beauty, was a matrimonial 
conjunction for romance to tamper with. " Delicacy and con- 



318 MARIA LOUISA. 

stancy," strange ascriptions for Louis XIV.'s superannuated 
libertinage, contrasted by Lamartine "witli his fabrications of 
Napoleon's " flights of love," attribute to the domesticity of both 
those monarchs the very " dramatic heroism" at which he sneers. 
Joseph's always amiable and virtuous wife, with their daugh- 
ters, Jerome's admirable and royal wife, Maria Louisa's equal 
in rank, sister in family connexion, and superior in all feminine 
characteristics, were with the Empress at Blois, all of whom, 
during the four years of her married life, she had learned to 
regard with affection. If true to her marriage vow, she might, 
perhaps, have saved her husband, and preserved their empire, 
when vacillating, if not double dealing, between husband and 
father. Enamoured messages every day came from her hus- 
band to his wife and brothers, urging them, above all things, 
to save her and her child. Every day she sent messengers to 
her father, at one time Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, whom 
we afterwards had among the imperial fugitives in this country, 
and at another time M. Beausset, the chief actor in Lamartine's 
drama the very day, 8th April, of its occurrence. Whether, 
in the Empress's distress, she desired most to be with her 
father or husband, is doubtful : her duty, in such a difficulty, 
was to follow her husband's fortunes, whom Lamartine says she 
did not love, considering herself merely part of the dynastic 
machinery ; and the skeleton of what actually occurred, dressed 
and distorted, he embodies to appear what it was not. Joseph 
and Cambaceres, and Jerome, a younger man, with greater 
vivacity, urged her to cross the Loire, and seek some place 
of safety from capture. She refused, with extreme resistance, 
and, to escape their importunities, rushed out of the room com- 
plainingly or imploringly. M. Beausset, an officer of the 
household, at hand, joined in her exclamations. General Caf- 
farelli and others of the military hastened tumultuously to 
where the commotion was heard ; and, without any of the in- 
decent, unmanly aggravation ascribed by Lamartine to Joseph, 
Jerome, and Cambaceres, it was certainly, as Meneval states, 
an inglorious episode to a melancholy drama. But the force, 
which he accuses them of attempting, is false. No force was 
attempted. The Empress was treated, during her six days' 



MARIA LOUISA. 319 

sojourn at Blois, -with all the delicacy due to her sex, and all 
the respect appropriate to her rank. Lamartine's statement, 
that Joseph and Jerome kept her captive, is wholly unfounded. 
Their urgent orders from the Emperor were to keep the palla- 
dium, as he and they held her to be, safe from hostile seizure. 
For that purpose further flight, beyond the Loire, was essen- 
tial, as they urged in vain. Within a short time of the scene 
that day, the Emperor Alexander's aid-de-camp, Schouvaloff, 
arrived at Blois, to whom Maria Louisa surrendered herself 
and child, probably without reluctance. To all her Bonaparte 
connexions she appeared to be attached, to Joseph and his 
family especially ; and six months afterwards, while her hus- 
band was at Elba, showed her undiminished regard for Joseph, 
by a visit at his residence, Pranjins, in Switzerland. Alex- 
ander's aid-de-camp, commissioned by the Allies, took the Em- 
press to Orleans. Whether, as she sometimes declared, she 
desired to join her husband at Elba, she returned to her father 
at Vienna, contrary to what is said to be a principle of regal 
duty, that when a princess's obligation conflicts between parent 
and husband, she is bound to abide with her husband. 

Joseph wrote to his brother-in-law. King Murat, in Italy, 
and to his brother-in-law, King Bernadotte, then in Flanders, 
entreating their succor, in vain. Napoleon's downfal was 
fixed. Kings and marshals, once aspiring, brave young men, 
when enthroned, entitled, and enriched, degenerated, like their 
imperial creator, and were among the first to desert him. 

Early in the morning of the 31st March, 1814, Napoleon 
arrived at Fontainebleau, where he fixed his quarters. INIar- 
shals Moncey and Lefebvre, Ney, Macdonald, Oudinot, and 
Berthier soon joined him there, as well as Marmont and Mor- 
tier, from Paris. The troops followed, and some fifty thousand 
soldiers were stationed between Fontainebleau and Paris, all, 
except their superior ofiicers, enthusiastic to be led by their 
Emperor to attack the enemy in their capital ; on which move- 
ment he too was bent. The confidence of the army in him was 
never greater or their spirit higher. If eight of his marshals 
had not continually infested his apartments and distracted his 
councils, that attack would have been made, and probably sue- 



320 FONTAINEBLEAU. 

ceeded ; for in a very short time the conquerors, leaving mostly 
the heights and strong places near the capital, were scattered 
about the town, in which, with the co-operation of the suburbs, 
their assault, by a furious French army, would have been ter- 
rible. At all events, no result by hostihties would have been 
so injurious, expensive, and disgraceful, if so sanguinary, as 
the restoration of the Bourbons by foreign troops, subjugating 
France, for several years occupied by them. But more than 
Joseph at the Tuileries, when he authorized capitulation. Na- 
poleon at Fontainebleau was demorahzed. Mere bodily infirm- 
ity may explain his indecision. I have it from one of Joseph's 
family, then in the midst of all those transactions, that, besides 
the mental agony unavoidable in such a crisis, Napoleon's 
labors, by night and day, were so incessant and severe, as to 
render him no longer the man of iron will and superhuman in- 
telligence he had been. The eight marshals with him were, 
moreover, a dead weight. Soult was near Bourdeaux, Suchet 
in Spain, and Augereau at Lyons. Nearly all the other first 
soldiers of the French Empire were with their great master ; 
in battle as brave, though not as efficient, as ever, but in coun- 
cil almost traitors to the imperial cause. While Marmont has 
been consigned to infamy for overt act of high treason, Oudi- 
not was not much less unfaithful; Ney, Lefebvre, nearly all 
but Macdonald, extremely disafiected, insubordinate, selfish, 
pusillanimous, and inclined to desertion ; Berthier and Mar- 
mont, Napoleon's favorites, leaders in his betrayal ; Ney, 
consecrated by sacrifice a year after, rudely intractable at 
Fontainebleau ; Macdonald, estranged for many years from 
Napoleon, and never among his flatterers, the only marshal 
who behaved like a man of honor and spirit on the trying oc- 
casion of the Emperor's two forced abdications. If there had 
been no marshals about him, with enormous fortunes and ficti- 
tious rank to save, in all probability the downfal of the Em- 
peror would not have occurred, betrayed and ruined by new- 
made kings, with family crowns, and bastard nobles. 

The Emperor Alexander was presiding genius of the move- 
ment at Paris which, by unlawful decree of part of the Senate, 
released the French from allegiance to Napoleon and his family ; 



ABDICATION. 321 

and it was fortunate that so kind a conqueror ruled, instead of 
the dull king of Prussia, the extremely inimical Austrian com- 
mander SchAvartzenberg, or the more than all unmerciful Cas- 
tlercagh. Under Alexander's auspices that astonishing in- 
triguer Talleyrand, without its being then or yet ascertained 
what his preference was, got together sixty-four of the one 
hundred and forty senators, and some eighty of the three hun- 
dred members of the Legislative Body, and raised up a provi- 
sional government, consisting of Talleyrand as president, Jau- 
court, formerly member of the Constituent Assembly, and one 
of Napoleon's new nobles, Bournonville, an old general of the 
republic, signalized by his democratic professions, the Abbe 
Montesquieu, correspondent of Louis XVIIL, and Dalberg, a 
German whom Napoleon had made a French duke. After a 
hurried conversation between seven foreigners, the Emperor 
Alexander, King of Prussia, Prince Schwartzenberg, the Aus- 
trian Prince Lichstentein, Dalberg, Nesselrode, Pozzo di Borgo, 
and Talleyrand, it was resolved to put aside Napoleon and all 
his family, not establish a regency for his son, and consequently, 
as was pronounced an inevitable result, restore the Bourbons ; 
who in that conference had no advocate. But when both Na- 
poleon and the regency were cast off, Talleyrand suggested 
Louis XYIIl., as the only remaining option. Alexander 
faintly mentioned Bernadotte, as he had before promised him ; 
but Talleyrand objected to him, as a mere soldier, inferior to 
the soldier dethroned. Pozzo di Borgo opposed the Empress's 
regency for her son, when proposed by Dalberg. As a mere 
inevitable result, the old royal family followed. 

During the night of the 3d April, Napoleon received from 
Marmont the Senate's decree of his dismissal. Next day, 
after the usual noon review of the troops. Marshals Berthier, 
Ney, Lefebvre, Oudinot, and Macdonald, together with Maret, 
Duke of Bassano, and Caulaincourt, long closeted with the 
Emperor, after much remonstrance and complaint, — Oudinot 
Key, and Lefebvre rudely urgent, — got from Napoleon his 
first abdication, of the 4th April, in favor of his child, with 
.his wife's regency. Macdonald, on all occasions, was kind, 
considerate, and honourable; Maret and Caulaincourt unde- 

Vol. IIL — 21 



6'Sl MAEMONT. 

viating in their devotion to the Emperor ; the others anxious 
to sacrifice him to their own safety. The Emperor's orders 
were preparatory to the attack on Paris. The recalcitrant mar- 
shals positively refused to obey, and insisted on his abdication. 
With that document, Ney, Caulaincourt, and Macdonald were 
commissioned to go to Paris, and make peace accordingly. 
So entire was Napoleon's confidence in Marmont, that he was 
at first named a commissioner with Ney and Caulaincourt ; but, 
in order not to detach him from his important command of the 
vanguard of the army, to lead in the assault of Paris, Macdo- 
nald was substituted for Marmont. On their way to Paris, 
Ney, Caulaincourt, and Macdonald called at Marmont's quar- 
ters and apprised him of the abdication, when he had already 
begun the treason which he finally perpetrated. As soon as 
he capitulated, and the senators decreed the Emperor's re- 
moval, Talleyrand and others went to work to induce Marmont 
to join in the substitution of some other monarch than Napo- 
leon, not intimating the Bourbons, but holding out the hope 
of peace by some change. Marmont may have had ideas of 
Monk and Marlborough's defection from the Commonwealth 
and from King James, of Dumouriez and La Fayette's deserting 
their armies and going over to their enemies, as they considered 
to save their country. Joseph Bonaparte's conjectural expla- 
nation, as he told me, of Marmont's treachery, was that, be- 
longing somewhat to the old nobility, and being married to a 
daughter of Peregaux the banker, through those channels of 
seduction his fidelity to Napoleon was shaken. After much 
hesitation, he agreed, on the 3d April, by a written stipulation 
with Schwartzenberg, to abandon Napoleon, and withdraw his 
corps of near ten thousand men from his service. Marmont, 
flattering himself that he was to be the peacemaker, and, by 
abandoning Napoleon, save France, before consenting, con- 
sulted some of his principal ojfficers, who approved the move- 
ment. When informed of the Emperor's abdication, deserting 
him became unnecessary ; Marmont, therefore, ordered the 
generals of his corps to keep the troops just as they were, 
without any change, till he returned. And then accompany- 
ing Ney, Caulaincourt, and Macdonald to Schwartzenberg's 



MARMONT. 823 

quarters for permits to pass through the hostile army into Paris, 
Marmont there annulled his arrangement ^'ith Schwartzenberg, 
and went with the three commissioners to make peace. But 
Souham, the general of Marmont's corps next in command, was 
a greater traitor than the marshal himself, and several of the 
other generals were equally ready to desert a sinking cause. 
Becoming alarmed, therefore, by visits from Colonels Gourgaud 
and Fabvier, which excited apprehensions that the Emperor was 
informed of their treasonable plot, and might severely punish 
its authors, Souham and the other conspirators, disobeying 
Marmont's positive orders not to change the position of the 
troops till his return, marched them away by night into an 
ambuscade concerted for their capture by the enemy. The 
troops supposed that they were marching toward Paris, to 
assault it next morning under the Emperor, and were not un- 
deceived till surrounded and saluted by Russians under arms. 
Indignant at that villanous deception, as soon as discovered, 
the colonels and some faithful generals revolted against Sou- 
ham and his accessaries, and were marching away, when Mar- 
mont, to whom intelligence of the whole movement had been 
sent, hurried from Paris, and overawed the faithful troops, by 
threats, entreaties, and his superior authority, completing the 
high treason which, from his first false step, had gone further 
than he perhaps designed. On all such occasions, the first 
consent is apt to produce consummation of crime. That final 
enormity of treasonable desertion, by which a fifth of Napo- 
leon's whole army was lost to him, was the last of the series 
of desertions, which began at Leipsic by whole corps, after 
Jomini and King Murat set the example. 

While Marmont's high treason was in perpetration, he accom- 
panied the three commissioners to Paris, where, at midnight, 
while he remained at Ney's residence, Ney, Caulaincourt, and 
Macdonald had their interview with the Emperor Alexander. 
They each in turn urged on that grand arbiter of government 
the legal, military, and political advantage of the regency over 
any other settlement of the question, which the Russian mon- 
arch uniformly declared was submitted to France for deter- 
mination. The royalists, the provisional government, and 



324 ALEXANDER. 

Napoleon's formidable Corsican antagonist, Pozzo di Borgo, 
strenuously contested any government with which Napoleon 
would have any thing to do. But his commissioners had 
reason to believe that Alexander's mind was inclining to the 
regency, when Marmont's treason put an end to all such in- 
clining by its unexpected announcement, in a note handed to 
Alexander, informing him that all Marmont's corps had de- 
serted, and actually gone over to the Russian troops. The 
Autocrat, apprising the commissioners of that monstrous fact, 
at once said that it entirely changed the argument of the whole 
aflfair. By that incident of unlucky treason, the Bourbons 
got leave to resume their reign, whsn the Emperor of Russia 
did not desire it, there was .reason to believe the Emperor 
of Austria preferred his daughter's regency during his grand- 
son's minority, the French Bourbon partizans were extremely 
few and insignificant, and that dynasty really had hardly any 
strenuous advocates, except the English, then without a soldier 
or a minister at Paris. If the Empress and her child had not 
been unwisely removed from the drawing of that lottery of 
chances, a woman in her capital, the daughter of a legitimate 
monarch, mother of a son representing the principle of legiti- 
mate succession, might have been the high prize, for she could 
hardly have been dethroned in that seat of government by 
the great supporters of that principle. As early, however, as 
the 81st of March, 1814, Schwartzenberg, Avho ought to be 
considered the representative of Austrian wishes, declared not 
only that there could be no lasting peace without Napoleon's 
removal from the throne, but that the old monarchs ought to 
be restored. Still it is impossible to say who would have 
drawn the prize, when it appears certain that the Emperor 
Alexander, the grand manager of the lottery, was determined 
to let France draw for herself. 

As soon as Napoleon learned Marmont's defection, and the 
rejection of his son's succession with his wife's regenc}'-, he 
demanded the return of his first abdication, turned all his 
thoughts to hostilities, suggested assembling an array beyond 
the Loire, making a stand in Italy; any thing but total and un- 
conditional submission. But his superior ofiicers and courtiers 



ABDICATION. 325 

strongly deprecated all further resistance. Most of tliem had 
then undergone some seduction from Paris ; and nearly every 
one was mdre anxious to save himself than his country. Civil 
•war, they contended, would be the inevitable and terrible resort ; 
the Emperor, who had never commanded any but great regular 
armies, must descend to be partizan leader of small bodies of 
volunteers. If then he had broke through the circle of das- 
tardly courtiers who hedged him in, and appealed to the army, 
there would have been among the soldiers and less distinguished 
officers but one sense of enthusiastic alacrity for action. But 
monarchical habits disarmed and unnerved him ; he could not 
move or act without the great officers of his impex'ial household 
and court, and they were nearly all against him : most of whom 
soon left him nearly alone at Fontainebleau. Even his valet, 
Constant, and the Egyptian Roustan, who followed him like a 
dog for fifteen years, deserted. Mortified, irresolute, and 
powerless, reasoning during two days with the base enno- 
bled, after forty-eight hours of weak and almost unmanly 
resistance, at last, on the 6th of April, 1814, he sat down and 
wrote, in four illegible lines, unintelligible to all not familiar 
with his scrawl, blotted, interlined, erased, and disfigured 
throughout by the despair which then agitated the writer of 
Napoleon's farewell to greatness, his second abdication, dated 
April 6, 1814. 

The treaty, called the treaty of Fontainebleau, executed at 
Paris, on the 11th of April, 1814, by Caulaincourt, Ney, and 
Macdonald, Metternich, Nesselrode and Hardenburg, to which, 
on the 17th of April, Castlereagh added his contumelious 
assent, profusely lavish of titles, left all but empire and 
France to the still-styled Emperor Napoleon, with revenues to 
him, his family, and some favorite officers, civil and military, 
less than the amount of the public and private fortunes of the 
Bonapartes : cheap price for the throne, said Pozzo di Borgo, 
when afterwards, Russian ambassador at Paris, he condemned 
the gross Bourbon breach of that treaty, by withholding every 
sous allowed by its grants, as dictated by Alexander's politic 
generosity. 

Soon after Napoleon finally abdicated, on the Gth of April, 



826 NAPOLEON. 

lie turned his thoughts to suicide, and, on the 8th, resolved on 
it. "When Caulaincourt presented him, from Paris, the treaty 
of the 11th, dejected and debilitated, he refused to ratify it, 
demanded the return of his last abdication, and protested 
against all provision for himself as superfluous for a conquered 
man, who had nothing to ask or to hope. Louis insisted that 
the throne was his by right, without the usurper's abdication, 
which Napoleon denied to be necessary by a conquered captive, " 
After he had, for nearly forty-eight hours, remained intractable, . 
moody and desperate, on the night of the 12th of April, 1814, 
he attempted suicide, alone, on a sofa in his bed-chamber. On ■ 
the retreat from Moscow, after being twice nearly taken pri- 
soner, he got from his physician, Yvan, a compound of opium 
with some other poisonous drug, said to be like that with which 
Condorcet saved himself, in prison, from execution by the guil- 
\ lotine, which the Emperor carried in a bag round his neck, [^ 
1 and, after his escape from Russia, kept in his desk. Either :-. 
I time had diminished its force, or he mixed it with too much / 
j liquid ; from some cause or other, the dose failed to produce 
I the expected effect when he swallowed it at Fontainebleau, to 
' escape the mortification of being exhibited as a captive. After 
Maret, Caulaincourt, and Bertrand, suddenly called from their 
beds by attendants, alarmed by his condition, in dread of his 
dissolution, hurried to his chamber to witness, as they sup- 
posed, its approach, a profuse sweat, followed by profound 
slumber, relieved him. Next morning he rose as usual, con- 
sented to the treaty which banished him to Elba, recovered his 
equanimity, busied himself with books and letters, and, at the 
end of a solitary week, on the 20th of April, with General 
Bertrand in his carriage, attended by the Russian, Austrian, 
Prussian, and English commissioners, after an affecting fare- 
well to the remnant of the French army at Fontainebleau, 
Napoleon set out for his place of confinement. 

The Empress soon went her way to Vienna; Napoleon's 
mother, with Louis Bonaparte and Cardinal Fesch, to Rome ; 
Joseph and Jerome Bonaparte, with Jerome's wife, to Switzer- 
land ; Joseph's wife and two daughters to Paris, which she 
left, reluctantly, the day after the capitulation ; and where her 






POZZO DI EORGO. 327 

sister, Bcrnaclotte's wife, together with several other relatives, 
were residing. 

One of Napoleon's most active enemies, who entered, sword 
in hand, with his master, the Emperor Alexander, and the con- 
quering allies, into Paris, was a brother Corsican, and former 
friend, though for many years a bitter and most efficient foe — 
Pozzo di Borgo. As I have often heard Joseph tell, and with 
no acrimony of expression or recollection, Pozzo and Joseph 
were colleagues in the Directory, or what we might consider 
the State Legislature, of Corsica, in 1790 ; Joseph then only 
twenty-two years old, and Pozzo, about the same age, with whom 
Napoleon was also intimate. Sebastian!, since marshal, noble, 
peer, minister and ambassador of France, distinguished in both 
military and civil life, but of whom, Joseph told me. Napoleon 
had no great opinion, was then a bare-footed Corsican boy, son 
of a tailor, as well as I remember that part of his biography ; 
but certainly employed by Jo?eph to go of errands, and pro- 
moted to being allowed to seal his letters, for whom Joseph at 
length got a commission in the French army, from which Se- 
bastian! rose, like Napoleon, by his own merits and oppor- 
tunities, till deep in King Louis Philippe's confidence, and his 
ambassador in England during one of Joseph's visits there. 
When Joseph parted, in London, with his secretary in America, 
Sari, another Corsican, Sebastian! introduced him to a situation 
in Paris, by which, together with Joseph's liberal donation in 
money, Sari was enabled to establish himself to the satisfaction 
of his handsome Spanish Cuban wife, Miss St. George, and 
educate their children in France. Pozzo, like Joseph, was a 
liberal or republican member of the Corsican local govern- 
ment, till, on the occupation of the island by the English, he 
abandoned the French and joined the English party, which 
separated him from the Bonapartes. When the English were 
expelled, Pozzo had to go too, and sought employment in 
England, under the protection of Lord Elliot, who had been 
viceroy in Corsica, and made use of Pozzo there. Elliot being 
sent ambassador to Russia, Pozzo accompanied him, where his 
conduct, in several transactions with the Emperor Alexander, 
pleased him, and induced Lord Elliot to offer him to the Ctzar, 



328 POZZO DI EORGO. 

as the best vray of providing for an aclveriturer to -wliom Lord 
Elliot was indebted for, without being able to requite, useful 
services. The English seldom employ foreigners, as the Rus- 
sians often do. Alexander gave Pozzo a commission in the 
army ; and as he never could return to Corsica, when become 
part of France, the Corsican pushed his fortune, with all his 
might, in Russian uniform. He Avas employed, as secret agent, 
in many places, to excite governments against France ; and 
in that capacity at Vienna, in 1809, when it was taken by 
Napoleon, Pozzo fled with the Austrian court into Hungary. 
Being disavowed, by both Austrian and Russian govern- 
ments, as a mischievous and unlucky spy, he made his escape, 
with much difficulty, in great destitution and danger, worn 
down with fatigue and exposure, to Constantinople, where he 
threw himself on the mercy of the British ambassador, by 
whom he was restored to the Emperor of Russia's favor. 
More active than ever in secret missions, he was, especially 
so in 1814, urging the Russians to march upon Paris, where 
he flattered himself that his inti'igues would succeed in getting 
the gates thrown open without serious resistance, as Fouche, 
Talleyrand, and others of the same order of talents and of 
merit as Pozzo, were contriving, like him, to get them opened. 
Pozzo, having assured his master that it would be done, 
passed a very critical and anxious night before the capitula- 
tion ; for, if his assurances had failed, his life might have paid 
the forfeit. As he rode into Paris next day, in the train of 
the sovereigns, the Archduke Constantino, with his barbarous 
face, and hoarse, guttural voice, said to him, " Pozzo, this is a 
lucky day for you. If we were not here, you would be 
hanged." Sometime afterwards, Pozzo said to Meneval, 
" There was one man wanting to make Napoleon master of the 
world, and I was that pian. What he wanted was some one 
like me, deep in the intrigues and designs of cabinets, to let 
him know what was contriving against him. But our recon- 
ciliation was impossible ; if he had ever caught me, he would 
have hanged me. Pozzo di Borgo became Russian ambassador 
at London, and afterwards at Paris, where he died very rich, 
and much admired. 



POZZO DI BORGO. 329 

Joseph's conduct, counsel, and suggestions, during the hun- 
dred days, were, as they always were, such that the Emperor's 
most unhounded confidence reposed in him to the last. Be- 
sides writing to King Murat, and causing a confidential mes- 
sage to be sent to Prince Bernadotte, his brothers-in-law, to 
bring them back to Napoleon, Joseph got the Emperor to de- 
spatch a sure messenger to his old Corsican colleague, Pozzo 
di Borgo, one of those masters of intrigue, like Talleyrand 
and Fouche, who seldom fail. The messenger to him carried 
five millions of francs, and an offer of high station in Corsica, 
if Pozzo would divide the allied powers, and detach one or 
more of the potentates or ministers from the coalition. Alex- 
ander was so disgusted by the disclosure, made too late, of 
Talleyrand's endeavor, at the Congress of Vienna, to combine 
Austria with France, under the Boui'bons, against Russian de- 
signs on Poland, that probably time only was wanting to sow 
dissension among the Allies. But Napoleon's messenger and 
bribe reached Pozzo too late, as he said, "I have just left the 
Congress, where all my power was exerted to rouse the coali- 
tion against Napoleon ; and I cannot now recall what I have 
done. I should be powerless if I attempted it. Why did you 
not come to me sooner ?" If Pozzo di Borgo had been reached, 
or his master, the Emperor Alexander, apprised sooner of the 
inimical designs of the English, united with the French royal- 
ists, to check Russian aggrandizement, possibly the result might 
have been different. This remarkable adventurer is believed to 
have suggested, in 1817, that the imperial and royal powers 
of Europe should unite, by force of invasion, to put down re- 
publicanism in America. 

On the 20th April, 1814, the Emperor left Fontainebleau, 
on his way to Elba, and embarked on board the British frigate 
the Undaunted the 4th of May. On the 29th of that month 
the Empress Josephine died, exhausted by efforts, when in 
feeble health, to receive and entertain at great entertainments 
the Emperor Alexander and King of Prussia, with their suites. 
Alexander, always amiable, was especially kind in attentions to 
her, and his constant attachment to her son Eugene, Avhose 



iJiJU BOUKBONS. 

second son, Duke of Leuclitenberg, is now the husband of 
Alexander's niece, the present Emperor NichoLas's daughter. 

The French did not accept the Eourbons when a few in- 
triguers and adventurers in Paris succeeded in restoring 
Louis, by no means the desired, though that title was given to 
him. Amazement and uneasiness were prevailing sentiments, 
at his clamorous Parisian restoration, of a people so fickle. 
Napoleon said, that their levity should not be imputed as 
a fault, especially as their frequent changes are without selfish 
motive. The people were not pleased ; the army was morti- 
fied and discontented. The few liberal ameliorations conceded 
by the king were his grants, when they should have been 
enacted by popular convention, of which government had 
nothing to fear ; for during thirty years every constitution 
proposed to the nation it had adopted. Cherishing free 
principles, without familiarity with the forms of free govern- 
ment, the French never understood or enjoyed liberty, which 
Napoleon feared and excluded, while confirming well-esta- 
blished equality. Under the Bourbons both liberty and equal- 
ity were discountenanced, as revolutionary conquests from 
royal and noble rights. Nearly ten millions of persons inte- 
rested in confiscated property, called national domain, were 
alarmed by government intimations of the injustice of such 
property ; thousands of military men were discharged, re- 
duced or otherwise discountenanced ; the imperial nobility 
were socially proscribed, ridiculed, and superseded by the 
royal nobles ; which Benjamin Constant denominated the fac- 
tion of rank — small in numbers, but strong in show, vain of 
elegance and pretensions to taste, which they mistook for 
authority, deceiving themselves by their own imbecility, and 
doomed to be always ignorant of the nation, with which, con- 
sidering it bad company, they would not take the trouble to 
become acquainted. 

Before Napoleon's return from Elba, therefore, all France, 
fermenting with aversion to the royal government and old 
aristocracy, its chief support, was canvassed by an imperial 
party, for restoring Napoleon and the empire, a regency party, 
for proclaiming his son with a regent, and an Orleans party ; 



ELBA. 331 

in one or more of "ohich parties several of the French "who 
afterAvards escaped to this country were engaged, particularly 
Marshal Grouchy, Generals Charles Lallemand and Lefebvre 
Desnouettes, and Colonel Henry Lallemand. The Emperor 
was aware of none of these conspiracies ; busy at Elba, 
building, reading, riding, active as ever, but in different ways 
from former occupations, though continually, for pastime, re- 
viewing, minutely inspecting, and carefully disciplining his 
few hundred soldiers. Straitened for means, and obliged to 
borrow of some Italian bankers, he knew that revolutions and 
restorations, and other great national and popular movements, 
are seldom accomplished by conspiracies or intrigues, but must 
make themselves by spontaneous operation, in order to be per- 
manent and satisfactory. Both Emperor and king lost the 
French throne by suppressing that liberty v.-hich the Emperor 
detested and the king could not understand; though neither 
dreaded it so much as many of the courtiers and counsellors, 
plebeian and aristocratic, of both. It was thought that Met- 
ternich, who was almost the Austrian government, contem- 
plated placing the young Napoleon, with his mother, on the 
throne ; and imputed to the English ministry that their vessels 
on guard around the island of Elba became extremely remiss 
on that station, in order to favor the Emperor's escape. Be- 
fore he left Fontainebleau he probably contemplated and con- 
certed some method of intercourse and intelligence with 
France, without written correspondence. But till the 22d of 
February, 1815, when a young man named Fleury du Chabou- 
lon visited Porto Ferrajo, Napoleon's place of residence in 
Elba, without letters, but with signs, from Maret, the Duke of 
Bassano, Napoleon had formed no plan, and made few, if any, 
preparations for his escape and return to France. The Con- 
gress of Vienna began its active sessions in October, 1814, into 
which assembly of potentates, prime ministers, and other an- 
tagonists of all representative government and new-made per- 
sonages Talleyrand carried the earnest orders of Louis, eagerly 
seconded by the Spanish, the Neapolitan, and all other Bour- 
bon kings and princes, to effect the removal of Napoleon from 
Elba to Malta, St. Helena, or some other remote place of 



332 napoleon's return. 

safe confinement, and the expulsion of King Murat from the 
throne of the Two Sicilies. The royalists had often attempted 
Napoleon's assassination, for which, Joseph Bonaparte told 
me, that Louis Philippe, as well as Charles X., contributed 
means. That the fallen Emperor was to be murdered, or re- 
moved to some severer confinement, was his belief, and that 
of nearly all his followers. The Bourbons had broken every 
article of the treaty of abdication. All of a sudden, there- 
fore, he resolved to leave Elba, and put it in execution as sud- 
denly as it was resolved, after personal confidential communi- 
cation with Fleury du Chaboulon. On the 26th of February, 
1815, just when throughout this country we were celebrating 
peace, Pauline Bonaparte gave a ball at Napoleon's plain and 
almost shabby residence, in Porto Ferrajo, where he took leave 
of her and his mother, who were living there with him, ;ind 
next day embarked, with Generals Bertrand, Drouet, and Cam- 
bronne, in one small brig of war and three luggers, with about 
a thousand men, with whom, after five days' navigation among 
French royal and English vessels of war, as adventurous and 
fortunate as his voyage from Egypt, he landed, on the 1st of 
March, at nearly the same spot in France where he landed in 
1799. From a ball, on the 26th of February, 1815, Napoleon 
darted like a bomb on his last romantic adventure ; from a ball 
at Metternich's, the 11th of March, 1815, the Emperors of 
Russia and Austria, King of Prussia, other kings, princes, and 
potentates, started in affright at the news, then just whispered, 
that Napoleon w^as in France ; from a ball at Brussels, near 
midnight, the 16th of June, Wellington and several of his offi- 
cers, surprised by intelligence of Napoleon's advance on the 
Prussian and English armies, without time to change their 
clothes, hurried forth to the battle of Waterloo. 

The common impression, that nearly all France was for the 
Emperor, and joined his standard at once, is a great mistake. 
France was opposed to the Bourbon king ; but, excepting the 
bulk of that rural population which has lately so wonderfully 
plied universal sufi"rage to elect the Emperor's nephew first pre- 
sident of the French republic, almost all other, especially the 
higher and conspicuous classes of France, w^ere not only opposed 



napoleon's return. 333 

to Napoleon, but preferred King Louis, though they disliked 
his government. The army was not for the Emperor ; not a 
single officer of note gave in his adhesion to him, except the 
very few constrained by overpowering circumstances. The 
marshals were all against him ; and, till the very day of his 
installation at Paris, generals were continually publishing their 
adhesion to the king. The merchants were all against him, 
for wars and his reign were fatal to commerce. The nobles, 
old and new, dreaded his restoration. The men of learning, 
of literary and scientific celebrity, were mostly either neutral 
or royalists. Even the holders of confiscated property feared 
that, with Bonaparte's return, there would be more disturbance. 
Capitalists, stockholders, bankers, speculators, the clergy, the 
provincial aristocracy, all these large and influential classes, 
feared in the Emperor a warrior to disturb and endanger them, 
and regarded Louis's reign of supineness as preferable to the 
Emperor's belligerent agitation ; for whom only the mass of 
the common people volunteered — those who have the least 
influence in calm times, but, like the ocean troubled, carry all 
before them when roused to tempestuous action. Napoleon was 
aware of this state of things. He knew that among his former 
most pliant instruments once were some of his most venomous 
enemies, after they crooked their knees to King Louis. Tal- 
leyrand, Fouche, Soult, Ney, and Davoust would sufi'er by his 
return more than steadfast royalists. So clear was his convic- 
tion that his enemies were the organized, high and low, and 
his advocates the instinctive country-folk, that he avoided all 
fortified places, and proceeded one hundred and twenty miles 
during six days, before he ventured to expose himself before 
any government obstacle, material or personal, civil or military, 
keeping away from towns till he got as far as Grenoble. The 
common people were for him, but that was nearly all ; and if, 
when reinstated, he had countenanced them, as they did him 
when a mere adventurer, in 1799, 1813, and 1815, he need 
not have been sent to St. Helena, after losing one battle at 
"Waterloo, any more than to Elba after the capture of Paris. 
L'n fortunately for him, and most unwisely, he put his trust in 
princes ; looked to the Emperor, his father-in-law, and ^letter- 



334 napoleon's return. 

nich, that raonarcli's mentor, from whom there was no hope, 
instead of the French people, who were his fast friends. Yet 
he told Benjamin Constant that he was the Emperor not of the 
soldiers, but of the peasants. "The people," said he, "the 
multitude, want no one but me. The plebs of France are my 
supporters ; they sympathize with me, as one of themselves. 
That was not the way of the privileged. The nobility served 
me, rushed into my antechambers in crowds for places, which 
they accepted, sought, and demanded. But it was another 
thing with the people. The popular fibre responded to mine ; 
I came from their ranks ; my voice acted on them. Look at 
my conscripts, peasants' sons. I never flattered them ; I 
treated them roughly. They did not surround me the less ; 
they did not the less hurra for the Emperor, because between 
them and me there is the same nature. They regard me as 
their support ; their guardian against the nobles. I have but 
to make a sign, or rather look away, and the nobles would be 
massacred in all the provinces. If there is any way of govern- 
ing by a constitution, so be it. I wanted the empire of the 
world, and to assure that, power without bounds was necessary 
for me. To govern only France, it may be that a constitution 
will do better ; I wanted to rule the world. And who would 
not in my place ? The world invited me to do it ; sovereigns 
and subjects were rivals to cast themselves beneath my sceptre. 
I seldom found any resistance in France ; but more from some 
obscure and unarmed Frenchmen than from all the kings now 
so proud to have no equal. See, then," said he to Constant, 
" what seems to you practicable. Bring me your ideas. Public 
discussions, free elections, responsible ministers, liberty of the 
press — I desire all that. Above all a free press : to stifle it 
is absurd ; I am convinced of that. I am the man of the 
people. If the people really want liberty, I OAve it to them. 
I have acknowledged their sovereignty ; I must lend an ear to 
their wishes, even to their caprices. I never wanted to op- 
press them for my own pleasure. I had great designs ; fate 
has decided them. I am no longer a conqueror ; I cannot be. 
I have but one mission ; to raise up France, and give her the 
government that suits her. I by no means hate liberty. I 



napoleon's return. 335 

thrust it aside when it obstructed me ; but I understand it ; I 
•was nourished in its thoughts. The work of fifteen years is 
destroyed, and cannot be begun again ; it would require twenty 
years, and the sacrifice of two millions of men. In order to 
sustain the long and difficult contest upon us, the nation must 
sustain me. In return, I believe it will require liberty. It 
shall have it. The state of things is new, and I ask only to 
be enlightened. Men of forty-five are not what they were at 
thirty. The repose of a constitutional king will suit me ; it 
will still better suit my son. During twelve years the nation 
rested from all political agitation, and for the last year from 
war. That double repose has rendered activity necessary. It 
wants, or thinks it wants, tribunes and discussions. It did not 
always want them. It threw itself at my feet when I first 
came to the government. You must remember that," said he 
to Constant, "you who attempted opposition. Where was 
your support, your strength ? Nowhere. I took less author- 
ity than I was invited to take. Now all is changed. A feeble 
government, contrary to the national interests, has given those 
interests the habit of standing on the defensive, of wrangling 
Avith authority. Taste for constitutions, for debates, for ha- 
rangues, appears to be come again. It is only the minority, 
however, who desire them. Don't deceive yourselves there. 
The people, or, if you please, the multitude, want only me." 

In this strain of garrulous, eloquent, and imposing argii^ 
ment, Bonaparte's vindication, such as all those intimate 
with Joseph Bonaparte continually heard from him, did Na- 
poleon explain and justify his career, confess his errors, recog- 
nize his altered condition, and concede part of the freedom 
indispensable for his support ; but the Avhole he never could be 
prevailed upon to allow. Hence his failure in 1815, as in 
1814. A chamber of deputies was forthwith convoked for all 
the departments, as one of the first acts of his new reign ; and 
a vote of the people asked to affirm his restoration. Perfect 
freedom of the press was established. During the hundred 
days, the French press was freer than the English — as free as 
the American. Bonaparte's government, his right to govern, 
the policy he pursued, all his conduct, every thing was freely 



336 NAPOLEON S RETURN. 

discussed in the public prints. On all alarming public junc- 
tures, governments solicit the people. Like individuals in dis- 
tress, they promise and they mean amendment. In that Avay 
English liberty was established in 1688. Under such exigency 
the people of Germany, Spain, and much of Europe, have 
obtained some share of government. Louis and Napoleon bid 
rival concessions for empire ; but both lost it by not bidding 
enough. The Emperor's amazing aptitude, industry, versa- 
tility, unabated and incredible talents for governing, were dis- 
played in every way but for freedom. He would not render 
the people sovereign, but persisted in merely declaring them" 
so, while he retained and clung to the real sovereignty. When 
the allied sovereigns at Vienna, by their ferocious decree of 
the 18th of March, 1815, declared him an outlaw, and called 
on all people to hunt him down, why did not he imitate the 
much-abused Jacobins of France, resisting, furiously, nearly all 
Europe combined to crush the French Republic as a national 
nuisance, to be abated vi et armis ? The Emperor, in 1815, was 
that nuisance which the republic had been. But imperial organ- 
ization could not save the country, like republican enthusiasm. 
The struggle of Napoleon's last imperial hundred days was the 
very crisis for letting loose universal and unrestricted French 
liberty, to resist that combination of German promise of liberty, 
by which royalty, in 1813, expelled him from Paris, and of which 
there was still hope enough left, in 1815, to drive him from 
Europe. King Murat, like a fool, alarmed by his open denun- 
ciation at the Congress of Vienna, attacked the Austrian troops 
in Italy at the very moment when he should have united 
with them. A year before, when he united with them, it was 
an act of the highest and most ungrateful treason to Napoleon ; 
in 1815, when he attacked them, it was extreme folly, and ruin 
to himself and his brothers. It put an end to all possibility 
or appearance of Napoleon's concert with the Austrian govern- 
ment, either to join him or stand aloof, precipitated the uni- 
versal European combinations against him, and sharpened its 
hate. Reduced to her own single energies, France, however, 
still powerful, unanimous, and zealous, patriotically and wisely 
regarded Napoleon's cause as her own, and him as undoubtedly 



napoleon's return. 837 

by far the greatest of all military champions. Conscripts 

. rallied to his standard in numbers unprecedented, and with 
ardor never surpassed ; the national guard was augmented 
and organized ; arms and munitions were prepared with pro- 
digious industry ; funds were not wanting ; loans were to 
be had; all warlike arrangements proceeded with complete 
success ; every thing was right, except the heart of the 
people, which the Emperor chilled by paralyzing disappoint 
ment. When Carnot was called to the ministry, and Constant 
invited tO form a constitution, the nation were persuaded that 

. Napoleon's promises of liberal institutions were to be realized. 
Born, as he said, one of them, bred republican, professing 
republican sentiments during the first year of his brilliant 
career, elected Emperor by the sovereignty of the people, 

- repenting his dictatorial sway, and declaring that he would 
renounce it, the great commonalty, who loved and sustained 
him, believed that liberty, long withheld, was at last to be 
added to established equality. Such was the popular faith of 
the thoughtless but patriotic mass, who feel without reasoning ; 

' but there was, as he truly said, a minority of thinking, rea- 
. soning, discoursing, writing, agitating, and controlling French 
— the same intelligent minority of the plebeian majority which 
influences and mostly regulates every free country — who 
taught the community, by means of a free press and every 
other channel of inculcation, that the Emperor was not as good 
as his word ; that he still feared anarchy, stigmatized those he 
denounced as Jacobins and idealogues, and insisted, as he told 
Constant, w^hen urging more freedom, that the Emperor's 
heavy hand must be felt as usual. Till his return from Elba^ 
he had never even encouraged liberty, which, when arrived at 
Paris, in 1815, he promised ; and actually began to institute, 
but stopped short, to expire of that suppression. 

Perhaps he was not altogether or alone guilty of that fatal and 
vulgar error, into which he was not led by any highborn gentle- 
man. His two former evil genii were still working his destruc- 
tion : the aristocratic Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna, 
and the incomprehensible Jacobin, Fbuche, whom the Emperor, 
by inexplicable mistake, appointed minister of police during the 
Vol. III. — 22 



338 FoucH^ 

hundred days, tliougli in constant correspondence with Metter- 
nich, Talleyrand, and Wellington. At St. Helena, his imperial 
dupe and victim thus sketched Fouche's portrait : — " He was a 
man infinitely more wicked than Robespierre. His venality 
was not as prominent as Talleyrand's. He had been a ter- 
rorist, one of the chiefs of the Jacobin faction. He betrayed 
and sacrificed, without remorse, all his old comrades and accom- 
plices. He intrigued every where, every how, and with every 
body. Intrigue was as necessary to him as food. He was very 
rich with ill-got wealth. There was no reliance on the' morality 
of such a minister, with the versatility of his talents. I was 
not his dupe. If I had been successful in 1815, he would have 
been faithful." Fouche's advice to Napoleon, and intrigues 
against him at Paris, Talleyrand's at Vienna, were pernicious 
to the mighty Othello, counteracted by those twin lagos. 
Talleyrand, at Vienna, had him proclaimed an outlaw ; while 
Fouche, at Paris, dissuaded or frustrated all honest appeals to 
the people, when, excited by Napoleon's public discourses to 
patriotic fervor, they felt sure of the establishment of their 
rights. If his dictatorial power was to be prolonged, what 
assurance had they that it would ever cease ? Constitutional 
reforms or amendments, prepared under his superintendence, 
would be no better than the royal grants. The apostles of 
liberty preached public discussion of free government by con- 
ventions of national representatives ; while the Emperor in- 
sisted that there was not time for such debate, and offended the 
deputies elected to the Assembly, by warning them, in his 
speech, against the divisions which ruined the lower Roman 
Empire, as, a year before, he insulted another assembly of 
different deputies by coarser but similar admonition. In the 
midst of a general rising of the unanimous nation, and military 
developments the most astonishing, doubling all his own won- 
derful labours and exertions for organization, the Emperor per- 
ceived, nevertheless, that progress and public sentiment were 
chilled by two apprehensions. First, the recent treason of Mar- 
rnont, Souham, and other superior ofiicers ; the misconduct of 
Augureau and Oudinot ; the obsequiousness with which all the 
marshals joined the king, imbued people with suspicion of the 



TAPJS. 339 

general infidelity of the military chiefs. Secondly, and worse 
than that, they were led to fear that the Emperor himself was a 
monarch, who, as he said of the Bourbons, had forgot nothing, 
and learned nothing, of the great springs and resources of 
national patriotism and independence. In his first calculation 
of what was necessary for the crisis, he ordered the opening of 
popular clubs, and the formation of bodies of associated work- 
men in the cities, to be confederated from city to city, accord- 
ing to a plan w^hich he drew. But Fouche was to be the ma- 
nager of this levy in mass ; which he undermined, while the 
mass detested him. Napoleon was told to beware of commo- 
tions and intestine bloodshed, of which he had a great horror, 
prodigal as he was of blood on fields of battle. When he 
reviewed the federcs of the suburbs of St. Anthony and St. 
Marceau, in front of the Tuileries, and promised them arms, 
those stout and valiant workmen, bone and sinew of the capital, 
telling Napoleon that they would have saved it if Joseph had 
embodied them for that purpose the year before, when the 
capitulation of Paris lost him the Empire, called on the Em- 
peror for liberty as Avell as arms, and shouted for liberty as 
well as for the Emperor. In a corresponding strain of 
patriotic fervor, he answered them, and, for the first time in 
many years, cheered the nation. But will it be believed that, 
misled by Fouche and other evil counsellors, and by his own 
fear of all democratic and popular commotion, he withheld 
arms from the twenty-five thousand able-bodied brave men 
of those two suburbs, whose descendants, in 1848, proved 
their fighting faculty by resisting large numbers of disci- 
plined troops, and killing more generals than Napoleon lost 
at Waterloo ? He shrunk from being dictator of an upraised 
democracy, which might have saved him, with insuperable 
aversion to popular tumultuary reinforcement. Referring to 
the vast numbers of mere populace that flocked to his wel- 
come, on the way from Elba to Paris, "I could have brought," 
said he, " two millions of men with me. But we must not de- 
ceive ourselves ; there was a great deal of Jacobinism in all 
that." He therefore could not be prevailed on to establish a 
new constitution. Nothing but that of the Empire, which was 



340 REPRESENTATION. 

a chain of his usurpations, would satisfy him, with what he was 
pleased to grant as additional articles. Those grants, not sub- 
mitted to discussion, deliberation, or amendment, were, how- 
ever, perfectly liberal. Religious liberty, freedom of the press, 
personal security, no troops without legislative enactment, and 
other guarantees of national emancipation from monarchical 
power, more than were granted by the king's charter, were 
constituted ; and with reason to believe that the Emperor was 
sincere in their establishment. Still, this patching old cloth 
with new, refusing arms to all but soldiers in regimentals, 
together with other undeniable indications of Napoleon's 
intractable clinging to powers justly odious to the large ma- 
jority of the French people, enabled his adversaries of every 
party, royalists, Orleanists, and republicans, to raise, as they 
did, formidable cries of disappointment and complaints of his 
incurable tyranny. As monarch, he was worse than Louis, it 
was said, in all but military capacity. Although the common- 
alty did not, at once, lose confidence in, or desert him, yet 
those he called idealogues and Jacobins, that is, intelligent, 
liberal, iMuential, democratic, founders, descendants or disci- 
ples of the founders of the revolution and its admirable re- 
forms, were constrained to depopuralize him as monarch incor- 
rigible in his despotic habits, tendencies, and prejudices. La 
Fayette, in constant correspondence with Benjamin Constant, 
came from his retirement, after fifteen years of ostracism; 
Lucien, the only one of all the Bonapartes inflexibly averse to 
monarchical rule, went from Borne to help Napoleon defend 
France. Lucien, La Fayette, and his son, were elected mem- 
bers of the Chamber of Deputies ; into which body were chosen 
many of that class which, like Somers in England, Adams 
and Henry in America, has always replenished the old French 
parliaments, and all English and American public bodies, with 
orators contending for liberty against military champions of 
arbitrary power. The French bar, provincial and metropolitan, 
furnished many advocates of free government ; to which com- 
merce, literature, and science, likewise contributed their pro- 
portion. Li times of belligerent emergency, that class was 
overruled by the soldiers and the titled aristocracy ; but in all 



REPRESENTATIOX. 341 

contests between a monarch and those he calls his people, law- 
yers have revived those principles, which, like Luthcranism in 
Germany, Jacobinism in France, representative government in 
England, and democracy in America, have been, for two hun- 
dred years, constantly progressive, whether right or wrong ; 
which, if Napoleon had triumphed at Waterloo, he must have 
suffered to rule. His mistake was confessed, and that of other 
arbitrary governors, signalized during his last hundred days, 
when government worked well, without the least difficulty, 
with unlimited freedom of the press. Nor can it, I think. Be 
denied that, as Napoleon himself said, liberty is the spring of 
all public and individual prosperity. 

Bonaparte, one of the people, natural champion of their 
rights, heir of the revolution, avenger of the people's wrongs 
from royalty, in his last acts shrunk from the people and 
the great reforms of the revolution. The six hundred and 
twenty-nine members of the National Assembly he convoked 
met at Paris, the 3d of June, 1815, mostly well disposed for 
constitutional monarchy. The day before their organization 
the Emperor met them, together with the army, the militia, 
the ministers, and the people, in the Field of Mars, at one of 
those great Parisian ostentations which, like all such popular 
displays, impose more than they empower, and rather mislead 
than inform. He appeared delighted with a demonstration 
which seemed to redintegrate him in national confidence, 
though most of the same city crowd, with like enthusiasm, 
would have cheered King Louis, if not the Emperor Alexan- 
der : a crowd not of mere people, not the French plebs, but 
the shop-keepers, the office-holding or hunting class, the 
courtiers of power, the lovers of show, the aristocratic vulgar, 
like Talleyrand's handsome niece, the Duchess of Dino, on 
horseback behind a man, when Louis XVIIL was to be idolized. 
Few signs of the times are more fallacious than street crowds, 
cheering any object of momentary excitement, but seldom to 
be relied on as tokens of popular sentiment. A large number 
of the military and deputies, entertained by him in his palace, 
was an equally delusive demonstration. When the represen- 
tatives of tlie people from all the eighty-six departments of 



342 REPRESENTATION. 

Prance came to be organized, a spirit at once displayed itself, 
•vvhich proved the radical error of Napoleon's tenacity. Uncer- 
tain whether the falling royalty or the imperial dictatorship 
would be restored, numbers of the members inclined to repub- 
licanism, which never, since the revolution began, however laid 
aside, was totally suppressed. Many of those Napoleon dreaded , 
as Jacobins, those called votej's (that is, who voted for the king's 
death) and conventionalists, members of the first revolutionary 
convention, had seats in the chamber of June, 1815. There 
were also many Bonapartists ; but several of them, and a de- ■ 
cided majority of the whole assembly, upheld the Emperor, not 
to found a dynasty, but as champion of the country ; averse to 
the Bourbons, but suspicious of Bonaparte, whose long tyranny 
they were resolved to reform. Contrary to our common Ame- 
rican, which is generally little more than the English impres- 
sion, it was an enlightened, patriotic body of able men, men 
of education, of property, of settled free principles ; more 
tumultuary and inconstant than the representatives of Eng- 
land or this country are, but not therefore, because their pas- 
sions were French instead of English, to be deemed either 
incapable or unworthy of free government. It was obvious, 
from first to last, that they were not like Napoleon's Senate 
and Legislative Body, mere satellites of his sun. In open 
defiance of all he could do to get one of his ministers elected 
president, the chamber chose Lanjuinais, a conventionalist and 
constitutional monarchist of tried patriotism, firmness, and 
worth, with whom the Emperor ought to have been satisfied, 
though he was not. A young lawyer, since constantly distin- 
guished in French politics, now (1850) president of the first 
Chamber of Deputies under the republic, Dupin, objecting to 
the Assembly swearing fidelity to the Emperor, his motion 
was overruled. But in their answer, of the 11th, to the Empe- 
ror's speech, on the 7th of June, the Assembly told him plainly 
that the national representatives would rectify what was de- 
fective in prior constitutions and compromises ; and Napoleon's 
last words, the imperial reply, warned the members against idle ' 
discussion, when action was indispensable. 

National independence was of higher necessity than consti- 



REPRESENTATION. 343 

tutional guai'antees. Still one executive sovereign, elected by 
the people, cannot control some hundreds of legislative sove- 
reigns, likewise empowered by the same people, whom it is 
worse than vain to chide, by telling them that they must act 
and not talk ; fortify the country against foreign foes, and not 
till that is done vouchsafe it from encroachments by its own 
servants. Several hundred assembled deputies of a nation will 
discourse, even though twelve hundred thousand enemies, as the 
Emperor Alexander said of that crisis, are marching to invade 
their constituents. It is a question how far La Fayette went, 
or was for going, in opposition to Napoleon, in that Assembly. 
Beholden to him for the noble generosity, without instruction 
from the Directory, of making La Fayette's enlargement, after 
five years' incarceration at Olmutz, an article in the treaty of 
Campo Formio, that republican, as he was called, became ex- 
tremely hostile to the Consul and Emperor, rejected his several 
proifers of distinction, and must have had his aversion as citi- 
zen much embittered by his anger as father, when his son ob- 
tained no promotion in the French army, after long and 
meritorious service. Inclining to the Bourbons more than to 
Bonaparte, La Fayette waited on the king, after his first 
restoration, but never on the Emperor throughout his whole 
reign ; seized the fii'st occasion in the Assembly for denouncing 
Kim, and for ofiensively saying that it was to be seen whether 
it would be a national representation or mere Napoleon club. 
Accused of endeavoring to unite Carnot and Fouche, the revo- 
lutionary members of the ministry, with himself in a plan to 
dethrone the Emperor, La Fayette's opposition and fear of 
renewed despotism were manifested in every way, till at last he 
was the immediate mover of Napoleon's third abdication, final 
overthrow, and the resulting subjugation of France, when Jo- 
seph, always a mediator, attempted in vain to convince La 
Fayette of Napoleon's sincere attachment to free government. 
On the 12th of June, 1815, leaving Joseph president of the 
Council, with Lucien and the ministry to conduct the govern- 
ment in his absence, the Emperor left Paris for the army. 
His insuperable aversion to popular freedom, and consequent 
dissidence with the Chamber of Deputies, precipitated the 



344 WATERLOO. 

cau;|,algu, inducing him to undertake the aggressive, when it 
was his own judgment that it woukl have been wiser to stand 
on the defensive, by waiting in France till the Allies invaded, 
which they could not have done with any effect before the 
middle of July. The Prussian and English armies were alone 
on the frontiers ; the Russians and Austrians could not arrive 
for some time ; and, at all events, it was better to be attacked 
than to attack. But speedy victory in arms seemed indispen- 
sabl'e to triumph over the Chamber of Deputies, for which Xa- 
poleon was less qualified than a field of battle. The battles 
of Ligny with Blucher, and of Waterloo with Wellington, 
were therefore precipitated. And, after his defeat, the Em- 
peror's apprehension of a jealous popular assembly induced 
him, when he should have staid with the army, to hurry back 
to Paris, without rallying the scattered troops, giving any order 
for their retreat, or appointing a commander in his stead. His 
own judgment was that he ought to stay with the army, as it 
had been that the army should not have been marched out of 
France. But, over-persuaded by most of his officers, though 
contrary to the opinion of some, after issuing orders at the 
various places he stopped at on the way home, for bringing 
together from all quarters as many troops as could be collected, 
he posted to Paris in a carriage w^ith Bertrand, and alighted, 
near midnight of the 20th of June, 1815, at the Elysian palace, 
where his nephew now resides as president. The legislative 
bodies sat every day, except the 18th of June, the day of the 
battle of Waterloo, which was Sunday. In the course of various 
discussions several members indicated aversion to the Emperor, 
but without any alarming measure or even speech. If Napoleon 
had possessed Lucien's talent for addressing and swaying a 
deliberative assembly, and had displayed that talent in the 
midst of the deputies, peradventure he might have saved him- 
self. But, eloquent and admirable talker as he was, composer 
of the most inspiring appeals to martial and national enthusiasm, 
able indeed to excite armies by captivating speech, he had no 
command of that oratory which discourses to bodies of un- 
armed men ; a deficiency he shares with nine-tenths of France. 
Eloquent and persuasive, not only men but women, in conver- 



NAPOLEON. 345 

sation and "WTitten composition, abound ; but few French can 
do what in English we call speak ; that is, standing erect, ex- 
cited yet self-poised, in the midst of numerous bystanders, with 
animated voice and gesture, command their attention, con- 
vince their understanding, and charm their attachments. That 
common attribute of lawyers, and special endowment of some 
few others, nature, education, and habit, had denied to Napo- 
leon. Serene, cheerful, commanding, and charming in battle, 
where death was dealing all around him ; cool, logical, and elo- 
quent in council ; he was abashed and confounded in the tribune, 
and quailed under the mere looks of an audience. There were 
one hundred and twenty lawyers elected to that Chamber of 
Deputies, in which one of the additional acts, drafted by Con- 
stant and adopted by the Emperor, provided that no written 
speech should be read. There had been no discussion in France 
for many years ; neither the Senate nor the Legislative Body 
being allowed debate. In order to revive it, the reading of 
written speeches was prohibited by the Constitution, which 
gave great ascendency to lawyers, whom Napoleon and his 
soldiers disliked, and in whose presence he would not venture 
a harangue. Of the other four hundred members, most were 
in some way. or other public functionaries. But Napoleon was 
not only speechless, he was, moreover, irresolute ; hesitated at 
that crisis as in others, held back and doubted, when all de- 
pended on instantaneous decision. Lucien, on the contrary, 
was as wisely bold then, and as persuasive in debate, as he had 
been in 1799. To dissolve the Assembly, and assume the dic- 
tatorship, was his unhesitating and unvarying opinion. So 
was it, Joseph told me, that of Sieyes, another man of reso- 
lution and action. But Napoleon was afraid. The army alto- 
gether, and nine-tenths of the nation, would have supported 
his assumption, if he had seized the sword and the purse. But 
the most wonderfully sagacious, and certainly one of the most 
valiant of men in the right, with the immense majority at his ^ 
command, suffered a very small minority, headed by one he \ 
contemptuously pronounced a ninny, a weak visionary — La; 
Fayette — with the principle of freedom and the word of thej 
tribune, to overcome vast preponderance of miglit, against 



346 LA FAYETTE. 

such a mere enthusiast, -with merely moral means. Royal 
legitimacy had some adherents, and popular sovereignty was 
with the mass. The Emperor's halting between his own and 
that sovereignty, with all the inclinations and the p,owers of 
the people, if he had espoused them, to crush the feeble 
remains of legitimacy, suffered his inferior, at the head of a 
small minority, with nothing stronger than words, to overthrow 
the whole authority of his government. But La Fayette 
either had not the power, or was not inchned, to exclude legi- 
timate royalty, which supplanted Napoleon's dictatorship by a 
sway infinitely more sanguinary, exhausting, and disgraceful. 
Joseph Bonaparte used often to repeat, with evident gratifica- 
tion, what John Adams told him, when he, with Quinette, 
visited that ancient, honest, and patriotic patriarch, at Quincy. 
"La Fayette was wrong," said he; "the Emperor was the 
true rallying point. The deputies and the country should 
have stuck to him after his defeat at Waterloo." 

The condition of things at Paris, on the Emperor's return 
there, was extremely critical ; and neither he, Joseph, nor any 
other of his immediate advisers, except Lucien, proved equal 
to the crisis. Whether La Fayette was right or wrong, his 
conduct was at any rate fearless ; and his last burst of impas- 
sioned eloquence, in answer to Lucien's admirable address to 
the deputies, tvas worthy of Grecian or Roman oratory. Na- 
poleon thought that he ought, but was afraid, to. dissolve the 
Chamber of Deputies, and assume the dictatorship. The 
deputies were urged by La Fayette and a few more to insist 
on his abdication, and if he withheld it, to declare him de- 
throned. As soon as Fouche heard of his defeat at Waterloo, 
that most consummate of all traitors immediately wrote to 
Wellington, was in treasonable concert with, and encou- 
raging the enemies of France, while in constant conference 
with the chief magistrate he betrayed. A deputy named 
Jay, tutor of Fouche's children, spoke, moved, and managed 
in the Chamber of Deputies as Fouche secretly dictated. 
The contest Avas earnest and doubtful throughout all the 21st 
of June, day and night, between the deputies and the Empe- 
ror, the house of peers performing a secondary but not impor- 



ABDICATION. 34T 

tant part. Lucien Bonaparte and La Fayette, as cliiefs, con- 
ducted the controversy, with great and equal ardour, courage, 
and address. The people of Paris were vehement for uphold- 
ing the Emperor, whom, in Benjamin Constant's generous 
opinion, the welfare and safety of the nation required the 
deputies to sustain. Napoleon, though irresolute, extremely 
anxious to remain monarch, and yielding the crown under 
compulsion only, was calm, almost torpid, continually pleaded 
the peril to France by his removal, disclaiming merely per- 
sonal considerations, and environed by eminent personages, 
nearly every one of whom deserted him, extolled the virtue 
and the wisdom of the populace, whom he deserted. " Do 
you hear," said he to Constant, "those people cheering me. 
It was not on them I heaped honors and riches. What do 
they owe me? I found them poor, and I leave them poor. 
But their instinct of nationality enlightens them ; the voice of 
the country speaks by them. In a moment, if I choose, the 
chambers would be no more. But one man's life is not worth 
such sacrifice. I did not return from Elba to drench Paris in 
blood." The Chamber of Deputies, as a body, was more irre- 
solute and fluctuating than the Emperor. Alarmed by frequent 
reports that Napoleon was coming with soldiers, as in 1799, to 
dissolve and disperse them, they feared that Lucien would per- 
form the same part in 1815. Their political existence at stake, 
they were told they must choose between putting the Emperor 
down, and suffering him to put them down. La Fayette, and 
a few more, pressed for his removal, if he did not abdicate. 
Fouche argued that, if he abdicated in favor of his son, his 
dynasty would continue, and France be saved. No Bourbon- 
ists appeared, but there were some Orleanists. Great numbers 
of imperialists, too, confidentially urged abdication in favor 
of the son. Carnot was the only minister that held out, and 
Lucien the only peer, when the deputies, on the 22d of June, be- 
came clamorous in their insistance for abdication. Not one of 
the Emperor's palace counsellors then stood fast. Even Lucien 
was at length silent, when members, one after another, from 
the chamber brought intelligence that he would be outlawed 
there, as at Vienna, if he did not abdicate, and that the cham- 



348 NAPOLEON II. 

ber would wait only one hour for it. Thus forced, at last, on 
the 22d of June, 1815, he sent to the two houses his abdica- 
tion in favor of his son ; which was received by the deputies 
with acclamations, but that part soon annulled which nomi- 
nated his son for successor. In the Chamber of Peers several 
boisterous sessions ensued, through the day and night, Lucien 
struggling there, not for the Emperor, but his son and a 
regency; one of the members calling it nonsense to choose a 
child for monarch who was an Austrian prisoner at Vienna. 
The result of violent agitation in both chambers, and of the 
Emperor's abdication on the 22d, was the election, by the joint 
houses, of a provisional government of five executive commis-. 
sioners, whose president, the traitor Fouche, contrived to be 
chosen by voting for himself. Hope that Napoleon's removal 
would appease the coalition, induced many to make the sacri- 
fice to peace ; but selfish calculations actuating most of those 
voting for it, his deposition was effected almost unanimously. 
As the condition on which he abdicated was that his son should 
succeed, his family, and the incumbents of places, flattered' 
themselves that the Bourbons were shut out, and the Bona- 
partes would continue to govern. The legislative bodies com- 
bined assumed the government, and gave it to five dictators, 
one of whom, by an act of indecent efi'rontery, substituted 
himself, with dictatorial powers, for the deposed chief magis- 
trate. The empire of intrigue thus inaugurated, on the 23d 
of June, 1815, on the motion of Manuel (whose speech that 
day prefaced his reputation as an orator), the deputies resolved, 
and the peers reafiirmed, that by the fact of the abdication of 
Napoleon L, Napoleon II. became Emperor by the Constitu- 
tion of the Empire. In all these proceedings there was no 
public appearance of or for the Bourbons, except a party for 
the Duke of Orleans, of which Fouche was the manager, in- 
triguing against both the elder branch of Bourbons and the 
Bonapartes, and reckoning Napoleon II. 's nomination the best 
way to bring about that of the Duke of Orleans. When the 
Emperor found the two houses inclined to accept his abdica- 
tion, but annul the condition which he made part of it in favor 
of his son, he threatened to treat the abdication as evaded, 



BLUCHER. 349 

and to declare himself dictator; to prevent which Fouch^ 
intrigued with the two houses to accept the conditional abdi- 
cation. Apparent sanction of the King of Rome's right to 
the throne was, therefore, rather to prevent his father's recall 
of his abdication, than to affirm the son's title. 

On the 23d of June, Fouche sent an emissary to Blucher 
and AVellington, to inform them of the Emperor's abdication : 

, whereupon they put their forces in motion for Paris. But not, 
it is said, without considerable difference of opinion between 
Blucher, who was for marching forthwith, and Wellington, who 
deemed it more prudent to wait awhile ; the Prussians actually 
preceding the English two days' march. Fouche sent to Na- 

^ poleon that his remaining in Paris would be dangerous; and, 
on the 25th of June, he withdrew to Malmaison, where General 
Becker, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and respectable 
officer of the army, was sent to take charge of the Emperor's 
person ; in which capacity he continued to act with kind and 
respectful attention, until he left Napoleon on board the Eng- 
lish ship. A commission of five, of whom La Fayette was the 
chief, visited the head-quarters of the allies, foolishly seek- 

. ing peace. Louis Bonaparte's wife, Hortensia Beauharnois, 
followed the Emperor to Malmaison, gave him her diamonds 
for funds, of which he was in great need, and, until his depar- 

' ture, continued to console him Avith affectionate devotion. His 
mother and her brother. Cardinal Fesch, were also with him 
there. The 26th, 27th, and 28th of June, were days of ex- 
treme anxiety. The French army, under Grouchy, sixty thou- 
sand strong, and well provided with every thing, all warmly 
attached to the Emperor, arrived near Paris. But many of 
the higher officers were treacherously contriving their own 
safety by his sacrifice. Soult had resigned and retired; 
Grouchy was inclining to the Bourbons ; Davoust, Secretary of 
"War, gave himself over to them with shameful indignity. Fouche 
was hourly contriving to get rid of Napoleon. La Fayette's 
commission basely proposed to surrender him to "Wellington 

- and Blucher. The Prussians were close behind the French 
army, near Paris. Blucher sent out partisan columns, to cap- 

, ture Napoleon at Malmaison, and swore he would hang him in 



850 napoleon's flight. 

sight of both armies. Wellington, while he refused passports 
for Napoleon's safe conduct to America, dissuaded Blucher 
from ferocious vengeance, which, Wellington said, would tar- 
nish their laurels. Napoleon, still hoping for some favorable 
turn of fortune, was lingering at Malmaison ; Fouche urging 
his departure for America, for which purpose the provisional 
government put two frigates at his disposal. On the 29th of 
June, between fifty and sixty thousand Prussians arrived near 
Paris, where a much larger French army was at hand ; Wel- 
lington two days' march behind the Prussians, and his army, 
as his published official despatches complained, the worst, and 
most inefficient he had for many years commanded. French 
officers, both of the army and national guard, therefore en- 
treated Napoleon to place himself at their head, when so 
favorable an opportunity offered for demolishing the Prussians, 
who might be inevitably destroyed, without the possibility of 
the English coming to their relief. Accordingly Napoleon, on 
the 28th of June, despatched General Becker to Paris, to ask 
permission of the executive to make that attack ; but Fouche 
refused. When Becker returned to Malmaison, he found the 
Emperor in regimentals, with his horses saddled, and all ready 
for action ; but, without permission from the government, or 
more formal request than he had received from the army, he 
would not venture a step, which Blucher, in his place, would 
have risked without hesitation ; and which, if successful, might 
have revived Napoleon's ascendant. Towards evening of the 
29th of June, somewhat disguised, in a round hat instead of 
that he generally wore, plain clothes, and a light summer 
carriage, accompanied by Becker, Bertrand, and Savary, tra- 
velling by themselves, without escort, while his suite, in several 
ostentatious equipages, followed at some distance behind, and 
not all by the same road. Napoleon, and his few faithful 
attendants, left IMalmaison for Bochefort, there to embark 
for America. When he left Paris for Malmaison, it was neces- 
sary to send his parade-equipage, a coach and six horses, with 
outriders and escort, by the public street, while he, in a car- 
riage of humble appearance, went by a back way, in order to 
avoid the tumultuary greeting of the crowd, the soldiery, and 



SURRENDER. 351 

national guards. On leaving Malmaison, incognito Avas a wain 
practised, not only to avoid notice of the army and the people, 
but for fear of assassination, which had been attempted in 
1814, and other injurious treatment on the road. The fare- 
Veil at Malmaison was still more affecting than that at Fon- 
taincbleau, where many manly tears were shed, when there was 
yet hope, of which, in 1815, none was entertained, except by 
Napoleon, though no one anticipated the cruel sufferings in 
store for his perfidious and barbarous captivity. But for false 
hopes, fickle minds, and trivial contradictions, there is little 
doubt that Napoleon might have escaped to America ; either 
on board the frigate Saale, Captain Philibert, on board of which 
vessel he slept one night, or some American or other neutral 
vessel from Bourdeaux or Ha\Te, several of which were eagerly 
at his service. The Bellerophon ship-of-the-line had been 
twenty-two years in continual commission, was old, crazy, dull 
and inefficient ; the Saale and the Medusa were new French 
frigates ; fine sailors, with excellent crews of old seamen, and 
the whole population of that maritime region, enthusiastically 
devoted to the Emperor, would have staked all they had on 
effecting his safe departure ; but after every measure for its 
judicious accomplishment was completed, and he was about to 
embark, mere trifles defeated the plan. The women who were 
to accompany him, and some of the men, exclaimed against the 
method of their distribution in separate vessels ; and Napoleon, 
his characteristic kindness then carried to instability of purpose, 
yielded to their clamorous outcries. Louis XYIII., reinstated 
on the 8th of July, sent his agent, the future Admiral de 
Rigny, who, on the 15th, was far on his way to arrest Napo- 
leon ; and the provisional government had ordered his being 
forcibly deported, so that some determination or other was 
unavoidable. Savary and Las Casas, sent before on board 
the Bellerophon, were encouraged by Captain Maitland, no 
doubt candidly, to believe that Napoleon would be generously 
treated in England. America, abandoned as impracticable, 
the only remaining option was capture, either by Bourbon 
emissaries or the British. Between them. Napoleon preferred 
the latter, and with reason. His treatment of all the Bour- 



352 NAPOLEON SURRENDERS. 

bons, except the Duke of Enghein, had always been noblj 
generous. Then- return for it would, no doubt, have been 
ignobly cruel; if possible, worse than that of the English 
government, of which George IV., a callous profligate, and 
Castlereagh, verging to insanity with pride of power, were the 
exponents. I have been assured, by excellent authority, that 
the Emperor Alexander, when waked up to be told of Napo- 
leon's overthrow, said to Czternicheff, " If he falls into my 
hands, he shall be safely kept, but with all the indulgence com- 
patible with magnificent captivity." But Napoleon's admira- 
tion of the free principles of the British constitution, and of 
the unconquerable fortitude of the British nation, induced him 
to consider British captivity preferable to Russian or Austrian. 
From JosejDh's personal intercourse, in 1801, with Lord Corn- 
wallis, he formed the opinion that inflexible rectitude charac- 
terizes the well-bred and educated English. Las Casas, whose 
acquaintance with England was greater than any of the rest 
of Napoleon's followers, and Madame Bertrand, who, with 
several others, dreaded a six weeks' voyage, to end in the wilds 
of America, took the English side of the question with earnest 
importunity. Finally, the Emperor's fifty followers, with only 
one solitary exception, flattered themselves, and advised him, 
that he would be safe under English laws, hospitably guarded 
by the English nation, and ultimately released. The only pro- 
testant against that fatal mistake, was General Charles Lalle- 
mand, a sturdy soldier, whom I well knew in this country. 
Contrary to his vehement and wise counsel. Napoleon resolved 
to trust England. As he took, for ever, leave of France, the 
tri-colored flags were supplanted on his two frigates, all the 
French shipping, and other places, by the white standard of 
bloody proscription, subjugation, and degradation, with which 
the country was overrun by the Bourbons and their foreign 
armies. Napoleon was welcomed as a sovereign guest on board 
the Bellerophon, and also by Admiral Hotham, in the Non- 
pareil, another English line-of-battle ship, lately from the 
American station, whose attendance at the ball to Decatur, in 
New London, for celebration of our peace with England, is 
mentioned in another part of this volume. But in a few days, 



ST. HELENA. 353 

taken to the English coast, instead of being honored as the 
guest, Napoleon was tortured as the prisoner of England. 
The buccaneer Admiral Cockburn, -whose recent American 
piracies fitted him for any detestable service, performed that 
of jailor to the ill-fated prisoner, in the line-of-battle ship 
Northumberland, transporting him to St. Helena. Cockburn 
deprived Napoleon, before sailing from England, of most of the 
friends who wished to follow him into captivity, and stripped 
those who remained of their swords ; which brutality he also 
endeavored to inflict on the hero, whose sword was almost the 
only remaining national symbol left by his cruel captors of his 
immortal glor3\ On the 17th of October, 1815, Admiral 
Cockburn delivered his prisoner to General Lowe, at St. Helena, 
another barbarian, who tortured him to death, after nearly seven 
years of inhuman and unexampled excruciation ; his last will, 
written on that bed of torment, with impassioned indignation, 
denouncing the assassination of his death. Never was the fallen, 
dethroned, and incarcerated Emperor so great or formidable as 
on that death-bed, when all the awe-struck potentates, states- 
men, and aristocracy of Europe trembled for their titles, pos- 
sessions, and divine rights, at the name of their solitary indi- 
vidual prisoner. No iron mask or dungeon in Europe, they 
proclaimed, would confine him, whom, afraid even to execute, 
they tortm-ed slowly to death. And dying, as his infant son 
clung, crying with childish petulance, to the palace in which 
he was born, so his immense father, with puerile tenacity, in 
the agonies of dissolution, clung to the title of Emperor, after 
being stripped of all the power. As General and Consul, 
having amassed all his best renown, with indestructible vanity 
he hugged the title of Emperor, which emperors and kings as 
preposterously refused. 

Paris was given up by Davoust to Blucher and "Wellington, 
by a convention or capitulation, termed suspension of arms, 
executed the 3d of July, 1815 ; and King Louis was restored 
by the Prussians and English the 8th of that month, by per- 
fidious, disgraceful, and ruinous surrender. In 1814, though 
discreditably abandoned by the government, that city was 
bravely defended by the troops; but in 1815, government,. 

Vol. m. — 23 



354 NAPOLEON. 

army, and all, were infamously betrayed by nearly all the 
great functionaries. Wellington, after passing some weeks 
among them, informed Dumouriez that there were very few 
real patriots or good heads in the capital of France. Joseph 
Bonaparte, long afterwards, declared that the nation was not 
to blame for what the Chamber of Deputies did. " The 
French nation," he said, "was not in a coterie of peers, but 
in the workshops, at the fireside, in the study, in the fields, 
in all hearts throbbing with recollections of national glories 
left to them by so many heroes — the nation that welcomed 
Napoleon at his return from Elba. I remember," said Joseph 
(as I have heard him often repeat), "that, to the eternal 
honor of Sieyes, when he heard of the loss of the battle 
of Waterloo, he came to see me, and finding me conversing 
with Lanjuinais, president of the Chamber of Deputies, he 
said : ' If you mean to persuade by talking, you'll have a great 
deal to do. Give me the right to speak. Lanjuinais,' said he, 
' Napoleon has at last lost a battle. He has need of us ; he is 
coming. Let us go and help him, that he may drive ofi" the 
barbarians. He alone can do it, with our help. After that, 
and the danger over, if he wants to be a despot, we'll hang 
him, if necessary. But now let us march with him; it is the 
only way to save ourselves. Let us save him, that we may 
save ourselves. The nation will be grateful to us for it ; 
for now he is the man of the nation.' " Joseph added that, 
beyond doubt. Napoleon desired all the happiness and all the 
liberty for France and Italy that they were capable of. All 
that he could do was to pacify them within and put them on 
the way, leaving it for time to do the rest. Religious settle- 
ment with the Pope, the empire, the imperial nobility, the 
marriage, all those were contrivances to reach an end unknown 
to those incorrigible, but with their concurrence tending to the 
common result. Napoleon sought peace with England, and 
the conquest of all rights proclaimed by the revolution, which 
the reign of terror, in 1793, outraged. For that purpose all 
parties must be united and work together for the same end, 
which would have been the happiness of France, of Italy, of 
Europe, and immense glory for himself. England successfully 



I 



MASSENA. 355 

opposed that consummation, and Napoleon perished in the 
midst of the effort or contrivance, when his real system and 
end were not yet understood and unmasked. 

So said Joseph Bonaparte, whose affection for Napoleon led 
him to appreciation of his designs more favorable than strict 
truth will warrant. Joseph was as much of a republican as a 
man once a king could be. His sentiments were sincerely 
those of freedom, equality, and fraternity ; but neither he nor 
Napoleon had ever taken that view of their extraordinary 
elevation and downfal submitted by my, however protracted, 
yet much abridged, account of such vast transactions. They 
all tended, I submit, to the final and permanent establishment 
of peaceable free government ; in what precise form may not 
be foretold, nor is, perhaps, important. The end may not be 
a republic by name, but some sort of free government, mixed 
with royalty. The issue, in 1815, is deplored by numberless 
historical, biographical, and other authors, as caused by the 
errors of La Fayette, Lanjuinais, and other inflexible advo- 
cates of liberal institutions. The misconduct of the Chamber 
of Deputies convoked by Napoleon, which, more than "Water- 
loo, contributed to his overthrow, is condemned as outdoing 
the Roman Senate besieged at Byzantium. Representatives 
of the French people discussed constitutions, bills of rights, 
and declarations of principles, till the Prussians actually 
marched conquerors into Paris, drove the debaters from their 
hall, and closed it by foreign military force. Next morning 
the members, with La Fayette at their head, trying in vain 
to resume their session and futile deliberations, were com- 
pelled to retire, and suffer their country to be governed awhile 
by kings of the old royal, superseding the new imperial race. 

Joseph often told the following anecdote of Napoleon and 
Massena, whom the Emperor considered the most fearless of 
his marshals. After the Emperor's exile to Elba, when Mas- 
sena, as one of the marshals of France, among a crowd of 
other courtiers, was surrounding Louis XVIII. at one of his 
audiences, he overheard the king say softly to a royalist urg- 
ing more reaction, "Not too fast. Slow and sure; we'll do it 
all in time." Alarmed and disgusted by that disclosure, Mas- 



856 LOUIS XVIII. 

sena joined Napoleon cordially when tie returned from Elba, 
who gave him command of the south, near Corsica, and, I 
believe, including that island. Before he went to assume that 
command, he said to the Emperor : " If you should be unfor- 
tunate, take refuge in Corsica ; I will go with you, and there 
we can make head against the world." But the Emperor de- 
clined that, as he did all similar suggestions and expedients for 
escape, by what he inflexibly rejected, as efforts that might 
and probably would fail, and then would disparage him, as a 
mere adventurer, instead of the vast conqueror, emperor, dic- 
tator, and hero he had been. I am assured also, by a person 
near him in his last struggles, after the second abdication, that 
Napoleon was disabled by fatigue, exhaustion, want of rest, 
and physical incapacity for any great resolution or exploit, 
when Lamarque's forces on the Loire, or Clausel near Bour- 
deaux, offered better and worthier means than Massena's 
project. 

On the 14th of July, 1815, Captain Maitland's declaration 
was, that he had then no safe-conduct for the Emperor ; but 
that, if he desired to embark for England, Captain Maitland 
was authorized to convey him there, and to treat him with all 
the respect, and even regard, due to the rank he held. On 
the faith of that assurance, the Emperor repaired, with his 
suite, on board the Bellerophon, there surrendered accord- 
ingly, and was received with all the military honors. The 
letter which, on the 13th July, he wrote to the prince-regent, 
putting himself under the protection of the British laws, was 
made known to Captain Maitland, to whom, as the Emperor 
stepped on board the Bellerophon, he said, " I am come on 
board your ship to put myself under protection of the British 
laws." In the reign or life of George IV., into whose hands 
Napoleon, unfortunately, put himself, representing the sove- 
reignty of Great Britain, I am not aware of any one act of 
exemplary, generous, or manly conduct. Sensual, puerile, and 
callous, he lived, reigned, and died, a contemptible man ; from 
the time when he was disgraced for cheating at a horse-race, 
to that when his kingdom was disturbed by his indecent at- 
tempts to divorce a wife, the mother of his daughter and heir- 



GEORGE IV. 57 

apparent. His father's chancellor, Eldon, ^-hom he kept in 
place by shameless tergiversation, spoke no doubt his princely 
master's sentiment, when mentioning the Emperor as that 
fellow. The ministerial declaration of the 30th July, 1815, 
apprising Napoleon that he was to be transported a prisoner 
to the island of St. Helena, in order that he might not again 
disturb the peace of the continent, assured him before the 
world that the climate was healthy, and the local situation 
would permit his being treated with more indulgence than 
could be done elsewhere. I am informed by M. Archambault, 
who was with Napoleon as coachman during part of his con- 
finement at St. Helena, and till sent away by Sir Hudson 
Lowe, that O'Meara's account of the Emperor's treatment and 
suflferings there agrees perfectly with all M. Archambault saw 
and heard. He is now a respectable store-keeper in Phila- 
delphia, fully entitled to credit, and with no motive to misre- 
present, beyond the feeling of attachment which may color, but 
should not falsify a statement. 

The manifesto against Napoleon, executed at Vienna, the 
13th March, 1815, by Russia, Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, 
France, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal, which denounced him 
as an outlaw, delivered to public vengeance, was the most re- 
markable act of national proscription ever individuated. If 
captured by Blucher, he declared his determination to hang 
the Emperor without trial. Wellington remonstrated against 
the impolicy of that act, but perfidiously suffered the restored 
Bourbons to execute Ney. If Napoleon had fallen into their 
hands, the Sicilian Bourbons, by Murat's execution, showed 
what the French Bourbons would have done with Napoleon. 
Compelled by Fouche to leave France, refused by Wellington 
the passport to take him safe through English fleets to Ame- 
rica, misled by his attendants to trust the British government, 
on the 15th of July, 1815, the Emperor went on board the 
Bellerophon as a guest, soliciting and promised, by Captain 
Maitland, protection. All that followed was not British law, 
liberty, or magnanimity, but ministerial and royal violence. 
On board the British ship the Emperor was in England, under 
the flag and law of that great kingdom. Not suffered to land, 



358 NAPOLEON IN ENGLAND. 

however, no legal proceeding for liberation was practicable. 
So mistaken was their great enemy's conception of British 
sentiment, that not a man, not a press, not a single voice was 
raised in his behalf. Castlcreagh's peremptory illegality was 
unanimously upheld and applauded. From July, 1815, when 
Napoleon surrendered, till April, 1816, when an act of Par- 
liament was passed, he was captive, but not prisoner, con- 
demned and confined without sentence. The prince-regent, in 
his speech to Parliament, did not mention him ; the act of 
Parliament spelt his name with u ; the prime minister, Castle- 
reagh, told Parliament he was Corsican ; the Lord High Chan- 
cellor Eldon called him tliat felloio ; his brother, the admiralty 
judge, Grant, master of the rolls, Ellenborough, the chief 
justice, Lord Liverpool, the legists and statesmen of the 
crown, taxed in vain their wits to establish legality in the 
detention of a captive, whom it was resolved to imprison for 
life. As there was no war between France and England, when 
he surrendered, he was not a prisoner of war. Can there be 
war against one person ? Or was Napoleon, as was said to be 
Wellington's opinion, a rebel traitor, in arms against the lawful 
sovereign of France ? The act of Parliament of the 11th of 
April, 1816, is entitled, to regulate intercourse with the island 
of St. Helena during the time Napoleon Biionaparte shall be 
detained there ; interdicting all intercourse with the island, 
but by special permission, as high crime and misdemeanor, 
severely punishable. After three sections, providing for that 
purpose, the fourth section declares, that whereas it may have 
happened, from the urgency of the case, that orders may have 
been given, acts done, and means used not strictly justified by 
law, therefore all persons so implicated are justified. 

There was an act of Parliament unanimously passed ; but, 
except that Parliament is omnipotent, there was no law for 
Napoleon's cruel retention, by the greatest exigency of state 
necessity. Doubts had been entertained, Castlereagh's brief 
speech confessed, as to the competency of the crown to detain 
Bwonaparte a prisoner after the termination of hostilities. Its 
justice he asserted, because, if a sovereign prince, he violated 
a treaty ; if not a sovereign, but a Corsican subject of France, 



NAPOL^aON AT ST. HELENA. 359 

then his sovcreigrt^ad not demanded his restoration. The 
policy of the measure was due to public safety and general 
peace. Every indulgence, the prime minister promised, should 
be extended to Bwonaparte, consistent with his safe custody. 
Brougham, representing the opposition, spoke, approving the 
confinement, but bespeaking lenity. In the lords' house Fox's 
nephew, Lord Holland, put a brief, manly, eloquent, and soli- 
tary appeal to British magnanimity on the journal, by his single 
protest. Not another voice in either house was raised in behalf 
of their vanquished victim, held, confessedly, by illegal act, till 
validated by parliamentary omnipotence. 

Of Napoleon at St. Helena, I am able to add but one im- 
portant fact to the particulars of his sufferings there published 
by others : which is that he never attempted to escape, but 
underwent his cruel captivity, if not with resignation, at all 
events with submission. Among the English governor Lowe's 
numerous barbarities was depriving the prisoner of his friends, 
physician, and servants. Las Casas and his son were sent 
away, and the surgeon, O'Meara ; so that when Antomarchi, 
the Italian sent by Cardinal Fesch to supply O'Meara's loss, 
arrived there, in September, 1819, Napoleon had been a year 
without a physician, and attacked by the painful disease which 
proved fatal. Bertrand and Montholbn, with their wives, were 
the only associates left for the Emperor's long lingering illness. 
On the 2d of April, 1821, when a servant mentioned that a 
comet had been seen in the east — "A comet !" said the Em- 
peror with animation ; " that was the precursor of Ca?sar's 
death." On the 15th of April he shut himself up, and made 
his last will, perfectly conscious of his approaching end. 
"These are my final preparations," said he; "I am going; 
it is ait over with me." I)r. Antomarchi answering that there 
were yet many chances in his favor — "No more illusions," 
replied the Emperor. "I know how it is ; I am resigned." 
To the attendants round his bed he spoke with the utmost 
kindness, and of his approaching dissolution calmly, sometimes 
gayly. " I shall meet my brave comrades in Elysium," said 
he, " where we will talk over our wars with the Scipios, the 
Hannibals, the Caesars, and the Fredericks :— unless, indeed," 



360 napoleon's death. 

he added, Avlth a smile, " they should be afraid below of seeing 
so many warriors together." To the English surgeon, Arnold, 
he caused his valedictory malediction on the British govern- 
_ment to be translated by Bertrand, as the Emperor dictated it 
to him. " The British government has assassinated me slowly, 
by piecemeal, and with premeditation ; and the infamous Hud- 
son Lowe has been executor of their high deeds. Dying on 
tbis frightful rock, deprived of my family and all communica- 
tion with them, I leave the opprobrium of my death to the 
reigning house of England. I should have been differently 
treated by the Emperor Alexander, the Emperor Francis, even 
by the King of Prussia." On the 21st of April, he asked for 
the succor of the Catholic religion, in which, he said to the 
priest, he was born, and whose duties he desired to fulfil. On 
the 28th of April, he directed Dr. Antomarchi to make the 
autopsy of his body, carry his heart to his dear Maria Louisa, 
and tell his mother and family that he died in want of every 
thing, abandoned, and in the most deplorable condition. On 
the 29th of April, after enjoying a draft of the little good 
water there was at St. Helena, which had been brought from 
a spring a mile off, he said: "If after my death they do not 
proscribe my corpse, as they have my person ; if they do not 
refuse me a little earth, I wish to be buried near my ancestors, 
in the cathedral of Ajaccio, in Corsica, or on the banks of the 
Seine, in the midst of the French people I loved so much. If 
not allowed to be buried there, let my body be put where tbis 
sweet pure water flows." On the 2d of May, he was delirious, 
with increased fever. On the 3d, in possession of his reason, 
*he told his testamentary executors, Bertrand and Montholon, 
that, about to die, he had sanctioned the principles infused 
into his laws and acts, not one of which he had not conse- 
crated. " Unfortunately, circumstances were adverse. I was 
obliged to be stern, and to put off. Reverses came. I could 
not unstring the bow ; and France was deprived of the liberal 
institutions which I designed for her. She will judge me in- 
dulgently, will look to my intentions, cherish my name, my 
victories." The 4th of May, 1821, was a day of frightfully 
tempestuous weather, the rain falling in torrents, the wind 



ST. HELENA. 361 

raging with the greatest violence, laying waste the plantation, 
beating down Napoleon's fovorite willow, the one only solitary 
green tree left standing by the storm, being at length torn up 
and thrown down in the mud. But all the noise of the hurri- 
cane did not rouse Napoleon from his stupor. At half-past 
five o'clock in the afternoon, he murmured some incoherent 
words, and at eleven minutes before six, with a slight foam on 
his lips, he expired. Governor Lowe, persecuting the fallen 
Emperor's dead body, would not suffer it to be taken to 
Europe, nor buried with any other than military honors, when 
laid in the earth at the foot of the willow shading the spring 
of water he was fond of; where, marked by a plain stone, 
without any inscription, it reposed during the eighteen years 
of solitary interment which preceded the ostentatious con- 
veyance of his remains from St. Helena to Paris. 

Enemies too many and too powerful were dependent for 
their crowns and ministries on his removal far from Europe, 
either by death or perpetual confinement, to allow law to be 
pleaded or justice to be done. The great powers of nearly all 
Christendom united pronounced his doom, which Great Britain 
was eager and proud to carry into execution. 

Unexpectedly incident to that sentence, this country was 
constrained either tacitly to participate or, probably in vain, 
resist, what all Europe combined had determined to enforce. 
On the 3d of July, 1815, a convention was signed at London, 
by Messrs. Adams, Clay, and Gallatin, for the United States, 
and Robinson, Gouldburn, and Adams, for Great Britain, to 
regulate the commerce between the territories of the United 
States and of his Britannic Majesty ; by the third article of 
which the vessels of the United States were authorized to 
touch for refreshment, but not for commerce, in the course of 
their voyages to and from the British territories in India, or 
to or from the territories of the Emperor of China, at the 
island of St. Helena. After that commercial convention was 
ratified by Great Britain, the 31st of July, 1815, and before 
its ratification by the Senate of the L^nited States, on the 2'2d 
of December of that year, the British charge d'affaires at 
Washington, Anthony St. John Baker, on the 24th of No- 



362 ST. HELENA. 

vember, 1815, officially informed the American Executive that, 
in consequence of events which had happened in Europe sub- 
sequent to the signature of the convention, it had been deemed 
expedient and determined, in conjunction with the allied sove- 
reigns, that St. Helena should be the place allotted for the 
future residence of General Napoleon Bonaparte, under such 
regulations as might be necessary for the perfect security of 
his person ; and resolved for that purpose that all ships and 
vessels whatever, as well British ships and vessels as others, 
excepting only ships belonging to the East India Company, 
should be excluded from all communication mth. or approach 
to that island. It had, therefore, become impossible to comply 
with so much of the third article of the treaty as related to 
the liberty of touching for refreshments at the island of St. 
Helena, and the ratification of that treaty would be exchanged 
under the explicit declaration and understanding that the ves- 
sels of the United States could not be allowed to touch at, or 
hold any communication whatever with that island, as long as 
it should continue to be the place of residence of Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

The Senate of the United States, in December, 1815, rati- 
fied the convention of the preceding July, with knowledge of 
that British alteration. On the 20th of October, 1818, the 
convention of 1815 was extended for ten years more by ano- 
ther convention, executed for the United States by Mr. Galla- 
tin, their minister to France, and Mr. Rush, their minister in 
England. Thus, from the time of Napoleon's confinement at St. 
Helena until his death there, the United States were passive 
participants in his punishment, while his brother Joseph was 
an inhabitant of this country. Napoleon dying there, the 5th 
of May, 1821, on the 30th of July of that year the British 
government gave ours official notice that the restriction was 
at an end. 

One of Napoleon's last acts at the Elysian palace, before 
he went to Malmaison, was to tell Joseph, as he told me, 
that he had sent to his residence, rue du Faubourg St. Ho- 
nor6, copies of the allied sovereigns' letters to keep, as well as 
Joseph could, and that the originals would be kept and taken 



sovereigns' letters. ' 363 

care of by the Secretary of State, the Duke of Bassano. 
Accordingly Joseph found the copies on the table of his study, 
when he went home, and left them there with his other papers. 
Some days afterwards, when obliged to leave Paris, in order to 
follow the Emperor to Ilochefort, he desired his wife and se- 
cretary, Mr. Presle, to collect all his papers, secure them in 
trunks, and send them to several reliable acquaintances, to be 
saved from the enemies about to enter Paris, which was done ; 
but soon after his departure, the friends with whom the trunks 
were left, fearing that the Bourbon police would be making 
search for them, requested Queen Julia (Joseph's wife) to take 
the trunks back again, which were then removed to her sister's, 
the princess royal of Sweden, where it was thought they would 
be safer. 

The republicans of the world, and all thinking freemen, have 
been, unfortunately, and no doubt surreptitiously, deprived of 
the knowledge and just appreciation of those specimens of 
imperial and royal unworthiness. They were letters, on 
various occasions, addressed to Napoleon, both as Consid and 
Emperor, by the Emperors Paul and Alexander of Russia, 
the Emperor Francis of Austria, his future father-in-law, the 
Electors whom he made kings of Bavaria and Wirtemburg — 
the first-mentioned of whose daughters married Eugene Beau- 
harnois, and the last mentioned, Jerome Bonaparte — and by the 
Spanish royal family. Some of the disgraceful letters of the 
latter have been published; but none of the former sovereigns \ 
have been subjected to that wholesome animadversion which! 
their exposure would have elicited, to prove how inferior they 
were to Napoleon in virtue as well as wisdom. Couched in; 
terms of base adulation and rapacious solicitation, those impe- 
rial and royal missives were so unlike what is, by the ignorant, 
commonly supposed, and by most of the wise, who fashion 
public sentiment, inculcated as regal, that Napoleon often spoke 
to Joseph with sovereign contempt of their authors, not merely 
as^ monarchs, but as men ; poor devils, he said, no more fit 
for thrones than (using a favorite expression of his own) I am 
to be a bishop. During the hostile occupations of the French 
capital, in both 1814 and 1815, those original documents are 



364 sovereigns' lettees. 

believed to liave escaped the recapture which the conquerors 
visited on the monuments of art, sent there by Napoleon, as 
trophies of his conquests. M. Meneval, whose means of 
information were excellent, says that it is not known what 
became of those originals, for which, during ten years, the 
Duke of Bassano searched in vain. From among the originals, 
of which he caused copies to be taken, by Napoleon's order, 
for Joseph, the letters of the Spanish princes were missing, 
the bundle containing them being empty, and a memorandum 
left in it, stating that it had been delivered to the Duke of 
Blacas, by order of the minister. The Duke of Blacas was 
King Louis XVIII. 's first favorite, who may have desired to 
save the Spanish Bourbon family from the publication of their 
villanous correspondence. But it seems strange that he did 
not, if he could, also snatch that of the other sovereigns from 
exposure. In 1837, Joseph Bonaparte, at London, instituted 
an inquiry concerning these sovereigns' letters, and ascertained, 
as far as the partial, for it was not a full and unreserved, 
acknowledgment of Mr. Murray, an eminent publisher in Al- 
bermarle Street, went, that somewhere about the year 1822, 
what purported to be the original letters were offered to him 
for sale ; but that he refused to buy them, in consequence of 
some doubts of their authenticity on the part of his advisers 
and friends. He mentioned the Duke of Wellington as one of 
those who doubted their genuineness ; doubts which, it after- 
wards appears, as Mr. Murray affirmed, in 1837, had no foun- 
dation ; and his refusal, founded upon which doubts, he much 
regretted. Mr. Murray further said, that the letters were 
represented to him as having been forwarded from the custody 
of a French marshal, whose name he had forgotten. On 
naming the Duke of Bassano to him, he said that was it. The 
letters written by the Emperors of Russia were, at the sugges- 
tion of Mr. Murray, offered for sale to Prince Lieven, the 
Russian ambassador, who gave ten thousand pounds for that 
portion of the correspondence. There are improbabilities in 
this statement. The Duke of Wellington, Lord Castlereagh, 
and several other persons, on seeing the letters, must have 
been able to decide whether they were genuine. And would 



sovereigns' letters. 365 

the Russian ambassador purchase his sovereign's portion of 
them Avithout apprising the ministers of Bavaria and Wirtera- 
burg that they coukl likewise preserve those of their respective 
sovereigns from publication? The Duke of Bassano, whose 
daughter married a son of Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, 
has been suspected of offering the letters for sale ; as Mr. Mur- 
ray, to whom they were offered, said that his offer came from 
the Duke of Bassano, a French marshal. But that duke was 
not a marshal, nor, like most marshals, was his dukedom forti- 
fied by much wealth. He Avas poor ; and hence suspicion arose 
of him among some not apt to be uncharitable. But, in all 
the stages of Napoleon's downfal, the Duke of Bassano re- 
mained exemplarily faithful to him ; and it is not reasonable to 
suspect him, without proof, of so base a contravention of what 
he well knew was Napoleon's disposition of those original 
letters. 

More than one copy of them was taken for preservation 
and publication, in case of need. The copies given by the 
Emperor to Joseph were deposited in a trunk, left at the hotel 
Langcron, St. Honore Street, which he occupied ; which trunk 
passed through several hands, before being sent to its destina- 
tion. But when there was question of sending it from Paris 
to Point Breeze, it was untouched. The important documents 
it contained had been put, by parcels, in the bottom of trunks 
of linen and other things, to conceal them from the search of 
the police. 

The Emperor, exasperated and debilitated by inhuman treat- 
ment at St. Helena, after enduring its torments nearly four 
years, when hope of liberation, of kinder custody, and of 
almost life was at an end, resolved to expose the sovereign 
authors of his sufferings by publishing their disgraceful let- 
ters. The Irish surgeon, O'Meara, who accompanied from 
Europe the captive, not allowed his own choice of a medical 
attendant, was charmed by Napoleon's familiar intimacy, as 
almost any one would have been, even though he had been 
an obscure individual, instead of a prodigious hero, who was 
in turn fond of his physician, as any one is apt to be. One 
of the barbarities inflicted was, therefore, to break up that 



366 sovereigns' letters. 

cordiality, by which Napoleon was left for twelve months dan- 
gerously ill, without a physician. When O'Meara was taken 
from him and sent aw^ay. Napoleon charged that gentleman, 
on his arrival in Europe, to inform Joseph that Napoleon de- 
sired him to give O'Meara the parcel of sovereigns' letters ; 
which O'Meara was directed to publish ; " to manifest to 
the world," said Napoleon, "the abject homage which those 
vassals paid to me, when asking favors or supplicating 
thrones. When I was strong and in power, they quar- 
relled for my protection, and the honor of my alliance, 
and licked the dust under my feet." Mr. O'Meara's book 
adds, that the person with whom Joseph deposited the copies 
with which he was charged basely betrayed Joseph, as some 
one brought the original letters to London for sale. The 
Emperor, about the same time, caused Bertrand to write to 
Joseph to publish his copies of the letters. As all that he 
wrote from St. Helena was examined by his jailors there, be- 
fore it was put on the way to its destination, it was known to 
Sir Hudson Lowe and all the commissioners of custody, who 
made it also known to their respective sovereigns that the 
letters were about to be exposed to the world. What occurred 
in Europe with the originals, or any other copy of them than 
that deposited with Joseph, I am unable to state, further than 
as before mentioned. Nor do I know to whom Mr. O'Meara 
alludes as keeper of Joseph's copies, who basely betrayed him ; 
unless he intended to intimate that Bernadotte got possession 
of those copies and delivered them to his great northern pro- 
tector, the Emperor of Russia ; which was suspected by Joseph. 
An attempt to destroy them in this country was suspected also, 
when Joseph's residence at Point Breeze was burned, the 4th 
of January, 1820. At that time his house, furniture, and a 
large amount of valuable property were destroyed by fire, be- 
lieved to be the work of an incendiary servant, suspected as 
the instrument of a female member of the Russian embassy in 
this country, who often sojourned at Bordentown, adjoining 
Point Breeze. There was no proof of that perpetration, 
beyond inference, from the strong motive impelling the 
barbarian patriotism which reduced Smolensk and Moscow 



Joseph's departure. 367 

to heaps of ruins, as sacrifices of Russian loyalty. Napo- 
leon's directions to O'Meara to have the letters published 
were given in July, 1818, and his letters by Bertrand to 
Joseph, written about that time. Allowing a twelve month 
or something more for those orders to be made known to 
the Russian and other governments, and for their instructions 
to their foreign ministers to prevent the exposui-e, by getting 
and destroying the letters, the destruction of Joseph's copies 
may have been attempted in America early in 1820, when 
the box supposed to contain them had been ordered from 
Paris to his American residence. And in 1822 the originals 
were offered for sale to Mm-ray, the London bookseller. The 
whole subject, however, is involved in impenetrable obscu- 
rity, except the mere existence of the sovereigns' letters to 
Napoleon, which were seen by too many persons attesting that 
fact to leave any doubt of it. The iniquities imputed by legi- 
timate monarchy and aristocracy to the alleged usurper of their 
rights would be relieved of much of their darkest hues by ex- 
posure, in their true colors of his accusers, to whom, as he said, 
his greatest inferiority and fatal demerit was that he could not 
be his own grandson. Such is the vast and, in some respects, 
just influence of ancestry, and dread, not always irrational, 
of innovation. 

Joseph Bonaparte, resident with his wife and two daughters 
at the Luxembourg palace, left Paris on the 30th of June, 
1815, the day after the Emperor's departure, to follow him to 
Rochefort, and embark with him for America. They together 
examined maps and fixed on the place for residence which 
Joseph purchased in New Jersey, near Bordentown, between 
the two chief American cities, Philadelphia and New York. 
In moments of occasional tranquillity, the Emperor not only 
talked of his American existence, but gave some orders for 
horses, dogs, and other means of recreation in exile. Joseph's 
companions, travelling Avith him in two carriages, were General 
Expert, one of his aids as king of Spain ; a young attendant, 
M. Louis Maillard, who became in exile his most confidential 
companion in America, England, and Italy, as he had been in 
France and Spain ; a young Spaniard, named Unzaga ; and a 



368 JOSEPH S DEPARTURE. 

cook, named Francois Parrot. At Beaujency, where they 
passed a night, they fell in with M. Le Ray de Chaumont, who 
desired to sell the Emperor land for his residence in America ; 
and through whose introduction Joseph became acquainted with 
Mr. James Caret, for several years a member of his American 
family. Mr. Caret's written narrative of those occurrences is 
here incorporated with my Sketch, as a more accurate, actual, 
and indicative account than I can write, preceded by my state- 
ment of some circumstances unknown to Mr. Caret, as they 
have been related to me by Joseph. Encouraged by tidings 
from his wife at Paris, he proposed to Napoleon to put himself 
at the head of the forces commanded by General Clausel, at 
Bourdeaux, and raise the standard of the Empire. Napoleon 
refused. " If," said he, *' I did any thing of that sort, I would 
take command of the more considerable army under General 
Lamarque, on the Loire. But any such attempt would be 
civil war, to which I feel invincible repugnance, which, though 
it might last some time, would be uncertain in its results, and, 
if it failed, would dishonor me as an adventurer. Besides," 
he added, "I have seen too much of the vile time-serving 
treachery of those whom I have loaded with honors to trust 
them for such an enterprise." Napoleon was unwell. He 
was so at Waterloo ; the fatigue he underwent prior to which 
misfortune, and the distress afterwards, had much demoralized 
him. Joseph's last proposal, at Rochefort, was to save his 
brother by taking his place, as Lavalette's wife soon after 
saved his life. He offered Napoleon that, unwell as he was, 
he (Joseph) would go to bed and stay there for several days, 
as Napoleon confined by illness, while Napoleon might escape 
to America, as Joseph, in the vessel he had engaged, and 
with the means prepared for his passage. The Emperor, 
however, was averse to all merely fugitive expedients, which 
he deemed unworthy his great position ; and moreover flat- 
tered himself that English magnanimity and justice would 
save him from all but temporary, and that not rigorous 
confinement. 

Mr. Caret's narrative, entitled "Recollections of 1815," is 
as follows : — 



caret's xaerative. 369 

•' Wo were in the last days of June ; tlic Emperor Napoleon had abdicated 
in flivor of his son, and the power was in the hands of a provisional govern- 
ment, of which Cariiot and Foiich6 were the principal members. The ene- 
mies allied against France heard of the abdication with joy, and directed 
their armies with more confidence against Paris. On their side, the French 
saw the number of their soldiers increasing under the walls of the capital. 
Grouchy had brought back there his corps d'armee untouched, and it was 
rapidly increasing by the junction of other divisions, which naturally directed 
themselves towards Paris. The Emperor, who observed with vigilance 
every thing that occurred, thought the moment favorable for arresting the 
enemy in his march, and hastened to offer his services to the provisional 
government as general-in-chief, thinking, with reason, that the enthusiasm 
of the army, on again seeing their Emperor at their head, would cause it to 
make supernatural efforts to deliver the country from a foreign yoke. The 
generous offers of the Emperor were not accepted, and that refusal deter- 
mined him to ask the means of leaving France without further delay. The 
government placed at his disposal two frigates, which were lying in the port 
of Rochefort. The Emperor set off", on the 29th of June, 1815, from Mal- 
raaison, where he had been for several days, accompanied by several 
generals, and also by General Becker, appointed by the provisional govern- 
ment to accompany him to the place of his embarcation. The next day, I 
was presented to his brother, King Jaseph, at Bellevue, above Sevres. 
Naturally timid, 1 was soon reassured by the habitual benevolence of his 
conversation, and the expression of kindness that animated his fine face. It 
was settled that I should accom.pany him to the United States of America, 
whither the Emperor also wished to repair. We got into two carriages, 
and took the road to Orleans. Arrived at Angerville, King Joseph deter- 
mined to return to Paris, where he had left the Queen and her children, 
and that he might look after occurrences there. He entrusted me with a 
letter for the Emperor, and, causing me to be accompanied by one of the 
persons of his household, sent me off", post, in a little caleche. We soon 
reached Orleans, and followed the fine road that leads to Tours, on the right 
bank of the Loire. Four leagues from Blois, we perceived, on an elevation 
to our left, the ancient castle of Chaumont, with its majestic towers, where 
my wife and children, two sons, were, the youngest scarcely four months 
old. I begged my travelling companion, Baptiste Dalamon, to wait for me 
at the post; and, taking a ligiit boat, crossed the Loire, and bid farewell to 
my family, not knowing what my destiny would be, or when I should be 
permitted to see them again. Soon I resumed the road to Rochefort ; we 
rode very fast, in hope of overtaking the Emperor; and, arriving at Niort 
on the 2d of July, at 2 o'clock in the morning, learned that lie was still 
there, at the Prefecture. I went there at once, and was received by 
General Gourgaud, who introduced me into the apartment of Marshal Ber- 
trand, wlio was abed, but rose to speak to me. 'I have a letter from King 
Joseph for the Emperor.' 'Give me your despatch, and in a few minutes I 

Vol. III. — 2-t 



370 caret's narrative. 

will present yoii to his Majesty.' The Marshal came for me, and I was 
introduced to the Emperor; seated in an arm-chair, with one of his legs 
extended on another chair; green frock, blue pantaloons, and riding-boots. 
Holding in his hands King Joseph's letter, he asked me where I had left his 
brother; and a conversation began, in which Marshal Bertrand took part; 
for I answered in so low a voice, that the Emperor was obliged to make 
the Marshal repeat what I said. Informed by a naval officer that the 
English already blockaded the port of Rochefort, he had him called, and 
put several questions to him about the strength of the port, and the direction 
of the winds. During this conversation, having overcome my first moments 
of timidity, I told Marshal Bertrand that, if the Emperor could embark in an 
American schooner, whose sailing was greatly superior to the other vessels, 
he would be much more likely to escape the English cruisers; especially if 
at first protected by some French vessels of war engaging the enemy ; and 
that, if they could get some other merchant vessel to set off at the same 
time, success would be more probable, by obliging the English to divide 
their attacks among a greater number. The Emperor listened to me, and 
asked the naval officer if there was any American vessel at Rochefort. 
On his negative answer, I asked him if there was any at Rochelle. ' 1 do 
not know,' said he. 'We ought to know,' said the Emperor; ' Marshal, you 
must send some one there.' As the Marshal did not answer, I offered to 
fulfil the mission ; and the Emperor, fi.xing his eyes on me, said, ' Well, yes, 
set off; give him horses.' Marshal Bertrand went for an order from the 
prefect, who was in an adjoining room; and, soon after, I mounted my 
horse, after explaining to young Dalamon where I was going, and that I 
would be back in seven or eight hours ; and set off at a full gallop, pre- 
ceded by a postilion ; changed horses four times, and when arrived at Ro- 
chelle, hastened to tlie port, there to make inquiries. Not only was there 
no American vessel, but the few French brigs that were in port, with their 
fishing-boats, had stripped off their rigging, and it would have taken more 
than a week to fit a single one of them for sea. What I saw convinced me 
that we should find nothing that would serve for what was wanted. I 
therefore soon went back to Niort, escaping the curiosity of those wishing 
to know what had brought me to Rochelle. At Niort, I found the faithful 
Baptiste at the post-house, who told me that the Emperor and his suite had 
set off for Rochefort two hours before, and we waited, in order not to follow 
on the same road, in the little caliche. The day was far spent, and we had 
difficulty in procuring horses; the Emperor's suite was numerous, and they 
were deficient at several relays: in one village, we were obliged to use the 
mayor's authority to get two farm-horses, which drew us three leagues. At 
length we reached the gates of Rochefort, at one o'clock in the morning. 
They were closed; with difficulty we got them opened, and lodged at the 
Pacha Hotel. At nine o'clock I went to the maritime prefecture, where 
the Emperor lodged. There was a great bustle in the house ; the stair- 
cases were crowded by naval officers and other military, wishing to be pre- 



caret's narrative. 371 

sentcd to the Emperor; tlie persons of whose suite were also busy fixing 
themselves in different apartments. In the midst of the bustle, after 
remaining three hours without being able to speak to the Grand Marshal, I 
returned to the Pacha Hotel, and wrote him a note. A person came from 
him for me, an hour after, and he received me in a small room. ' Ah ! 
there you are,' said he. ' The Emperor has already asked twice for you;' 
,and lie look me into a parlor, where Napoleon was engaged looking at some 
map?, and the Marshal withdrew. I was about to tell the Emperor of my 
journey to Rochelle, when he interrupted me, and, taking up a paper, 
asked me if I knew several American commercial firms, of which he read 
the names; put other questions to me about the geography of the country, 
and the distances from one town to another, and then dismissed me. I found 
IMarsIial Bertrand in a neighboring room, with several other generals and 
officers. 'Come back to-morrow morning, at nine o'clock,' said he to me. 
The following day, at the appointed hour, he handed me an open letter, and 
looking steadfastly at me, ' This,' said he, ' is a letter in cypher, addressed 
to you.' It was written in short-hand, by M. LeRayde Chaumont, pro- 
prietor of large quantities of land in the United States, who had sold some 
to King Joseph in 1814. It was he who recommended me to that prince, 
and at his country-seat I had left my wife and children ; and he desired me to 
draw the Emperor's attention, and that of the members of his suite, to the 
lands in the State of New York. I offered to read the letter to the Grand 
Marshal, telling him that it was written in short-hand, by a method abridged 
and published some time before. After a moment's silence, lie said it was 
of no consequence, and took me to the Emperor, where he left me. 

" That day the Emperor kept me a long time, walking about with his 
hands behind him, and I following. When he turned at the end of the 
room, my arms sometimes touched his, and he often stopped, looking in my 
face, asking me questions, and then resumed his walk. His tone was 
neither abrupt nor rough, and I soon felt quite at ease with him. The con- 
versation turned entirely on the United States. The Emperor inquired into 
the details of the powers of the governors of the different States, both civil 
and military ; about the army, the militia, the distances between the large 
towns, the state of the roads, the breeds of horses, the population of New- 
York and of Philadelphia. As I was speaking warmly of New York — ' I 
should prefer Baltimore,' said he; and I supposed that his brother Jerome 
had commended it to him, having resided in that town, and married an 
American lady there, in 1805. I ventured to speak to the Emperor, also, of 
M. LeRayde Chaumont's lands in the State of New York, my fatlier and 
brothers having resided there for ten years. The Emperor rejected that 
overture, saying, ' No, no ; that is too near the English, and I want to travel 
some time before establishing myself;' and then he began again his ques- 
tions on the roads and the horses, and seemed in great haste to set off. 
'The winds are still ahead,' said he; and he sat down to examine a map 
of the Rochefort roadstead, putting., also, several questions to me about my 



372 caret's narbative. 

family, and soon after desired me to withdraw and wait in the adjoining 
parlor, where I found several generals and officers, who examined me atten- 
tively, surprised, no doubt, that the Emperor had kept me so long. After 
ten minutes. Marshal Bertrand, coming out from the Emperor, said, in an 
audible voice, ' M. Caret, you are one of us ; the Emperor has appointed 
you his interpreting secretary. You will be in a berth near his Majesty, 
on board the frigate La Saale, where you may have your things taken this 
evening.' When General Bertrand went out, the Duke of Rovigo con- 
gratulated me, and asked for information concerning the commerce between 
the United States and Mexico, observing that, with a million or two, one 
might do a good business in it. He had on the table near him two loaded 
pistols, and when he got up to go down into the garden of the Prefecture, 
I observed that he put them in his pockets; precautions taken, I thouglit, 
against surprise, because he carried considerable sums of money. After 
dinner, I took my valise into a boat, going to the roads with some officers. 
As we were going, which lasted two long hours, those gentlemen talked 
warmly of the Emperor's stay at Rochefort, and of his approaching depar- 
ture; repeating, several times, that the French navy would save him, 
though he had neglected it; save him once more, as it did before in Egypt. 
There were two frigates lying in the road, near the small island of Aix — 
the Medusa and the Saale ; the latter chosen for the Emperor, on board of 
which I went. A small room was shown me, where I put my things, and 
then went back to sleep at Rochefort. 

"Next day there was great commotion at the Prefecture, it being observed 
that the English blockaded the port more closely, with a ship-of-the-line and 
two or three frigates. The wind still west, and blowing in that direction 
with desperate steadiness, all were busy embarking stores and effijcts, and 
every one had orders to hold himself ready for the first favorable moment 
for departure. The people, observing these movements, gathered in greater 
number round the Prefecture, shouting, ' Long live the Emperor !' and 
every day repeating the same manifestations, which also broke out when 
the Emperor stopped at Niort ; the French people thus seeming to protest 
against their sovereign's abdication, not believing that one battle lost in 
Belgium, one hundred leagues from the capital, could determine the fate 
of the Empire. The generals who left Paris with the Emperor, with whom 
I talked, told me that at Niort the Emperor had again offered to command 
the army for the safety of the country, knowing that the enemy had been 
so imprudent as to separate, the fiery Blucher having gone ahead towards 
Versailles. The prompt answer he received was a formal refusal, and 
request that he would leave France immediately ; on which the Emperor 
gave orders forthwith for his departure from Niort for Rochefort. His suite 
consisted of Generals Bertrand, Montholon, their wives and children, Gene- 
rals Gourgaud and Lallemand, the elder, the Duke of Rovigo, M. LasCasas 
and his two sons, some Polish and French officers, Marchand, first valet-de- 
chambre of the Emperor, and several other persons attaclied to his house- 



caret's narrative. 373 

hold or to the generals of liis suite ; forming a total of about fifty persons, 
who were to be distributed in the two frigates. Next day the tidings from 
the roads were the same ; another vessel was visible in the Englisii fleet, 
and the news from Paris was no better. Marshal Davoust, who commanded 
the army under the walls, was said to be busy negotiating with the enemy, 
and had not supported General E.xcelman's movement, who had cut two 
Prussian regiments to pieces near Versailles. Tliat feat became u.-eless, 
which, if followed up, miglit have destroyed the Prussian army that had 
separated from the English, and then Wellington would have left I'>ance. 
Such at least was the opinion of the moment. General Vandamme told me, 
at Philadelphia, in 1819, that it was also his opinion, and that he thought 
they had missed the finest opportunity of taking their revenge. 

"King Joseph arrived soon after, and informed the Emperor of tiie retreat 
of the army on the Loire, of the suspension of hostilities, and that every 
thing appeared ready for the return of the Bourbons. On these important 
communications, the Emperor could delay no longer, but must come to a 
determination. First visiting the Isle of Ai.x and its fortifications, where he 
was received with the same enthusiasm as at Rochefort, he then went and 
slept on board the frigate La Saale. Tlie day the Emperor left the Prefec- 
ture, going with M. Unzaga, an ordnance officer of King Joseph's, into the 
parlor which the Emperor left, and where he had conversed with me, there 
was an open map on the table, and a pair of small scissors. The map, re- 
presenting the roads of Rochefort, was the one which the Emperor fre- 
quently examined, and on which he had traced, with a pencil, the position 
of the English cruisers. M. Unzaga taking possession of the scissors, 
which no doubt had been used by the Emperor, I followed his example, and 
took the map, which I still keep as a precious remembrance of the great 
man. But I did not follow him on board the frigate, as King Joseph kept 
me at Rochefort, and expressed a wish to have me near him Some days 
passed, amidst considerable agitation. It was said that the Emperor was 
invited to join tlie army of the Loire, which might have been reinforced 
with all the divisions that General Clausel commanded at Bourdeau.-c. The 
Emperor could have contended a long time at the head of his brave soldiers; 
but the contest would have become a civil war, which he did not choose. 
General Lallemand was sent to see the situation of La Gironde, at the 
mouth of that river, where he found the corvette Bayadere, with a captain 
and crew all devoted, and a single English frigate in the ofiing. An Ame- 
rican merchant-vessel had just successfully effected its sortie, without being 
overhauled. But the General declared at the same time that the wliite flag 
was already hoisted in some villages, wliich it was necessary to pass through; 
and that if the Emperor wished to go on board the Bayadere, he, as well as 
the persons who accompanied him, must assume disguises. The Emperor 
refused to escape in that way, or to conceal himself on bourd a little Danish 
vessel which was in the anchorage of the Isleof Ai.x, wiiose captain seemed 
sure of beinsr able to conceal him from English search, if he did not succeed 



374 caret's narrative. 

in avoiding their visits in his attempt to leave the harbor. When the wind 
changed, a new difficulty occurred: the Secretary of the Navy, Decres, 
had given orders not to risk the fate of the frigates, so that the courage and 
devotion of our brave sailors were paralyzed ; they were not, by fighting, 
to try and force a passage to save their Emperor. Time pressed. In that 
predicament, the Emperor despatched two of his generals, with a flag of 
truce, to Captain Maitland, who commanded the English station, to explain 
to him, that, wishing to repair to the United States, he requested a free 
passage for himself and suite. The English captain replied, that he could 
not grant the request. Then it was that the suggestion was made to the 
Emperor, that he should himself determine to go directly to England. M. 
Las Casas and Madame Bertrand had a great deal to do with that deter- 
mination. They supposed that the Emperor, having once set foot on Bri- 
tish soil, would naturally find himself under the protection of its laws, and 
that he would not even be detained very long, but hoped that at the end 
of a few months he would be suiFered to set off again for America. He 
expressed that thought to his brother. King Joseph, who announced to the 
Emperor his speedy departure for the United States, if possible. They 
hoped, therefore, to see each other again in the new world. Captain Mait- 
land was apprised of the Emperor's intention to repair on board his vessel, 
the Bellerophon, in order to go to England with his suite. King Joseph 
sent for nie, to inform me of what was passing, and that I was to remain 
with him ; that we would soon set off for the United States. Having left 
my portmanteau on board the frigate La Saale, next morning {14th of July) 
I went on board to get it, and opened it on deck, to put some papers in it. 
My head was down, and I had one knee on the deck, when I heard steps 
near me, a hand pressed my shoulder, and a voice, whose sound had been 
revealed to me only a few days before, spoke : ' Well, you are going to leave 
meV I got up quickly, perceiving it was the Emperor, whom I had not 
known was in the frigate, in the great bustle there 'was on board, many 
persons busy like me in getting their things fixed. I immediately e.\- 
claimed, ' What, sire, has not King Joseph yet spoken to you. He is going 
to the United States, where my father and brothers are expecting me ; and 
your majesty is going to England.' The Emperor's countenance did not 
express dissatisfaction, but, with a slight motion of the head, as if to bid 
me adieu, and followed by some officers, he got down into a shallop, which 
was waiting to take him to the Isle of Aix. I never saw him again. That 
very day he had a long conversation with King Joseph, who alone could 
tell what passed in that last solemn interview between two brothers who 
mutually loved and esteemed each other. The next day (15th of July ), the 
Emperor and his numerous suite embarked in shallops, and went on board 
the Bellerophon, which immediately set sail for England. How the Empe- 
ror's noble confidence was deceived, is known; that he was not allowed to 
land, but refused passports for America, carried by force to an island under 
the tropics, and exposed to ignoble annoyances, which abridged his life. 



caret's narrative. 375 

"I remained with King Joseph, who conducted himself with prudence in 
order to escape from iiis enemies; and, more fortunate than tiie Emperor, 
reached the free and hospitable soil of the United Slates. He trusted iiim- 
self to M. Francis Pelletreau, u Rochefort merchant; but could remain no 
longer in that town, for the Bourbons were already at Paris, and orders had 
been given that the white flag should every where in France replace the 
glorious tricolor. JM. Pelletreau had, near the aspen grove on the sea-coast, 
a small country-place, with some acres of land and a farmer; to which ha- 
bitation King Joseph went, accompanied by two persons only, and remained 
there quiet and concealed for ten days, leaving me at Rochefort, where, by 
his orders, I purchased several articles for the voyage we were about to 
undertake, — linen, plate, some books, French classics, the work of M. de la 
Rochcfoucalt on the United States, &c. In this interval I went to see him 
twice, and learned from him that he had sent Pelletreau tiie son to Bour- 
deaux, to freight an American vessel, who wrote that he had secured a brig 
going down to the mouth of the Gironde, where the Prince could embark, 
the little town of Royau being the nearest point to the river's mouth. King 
Joseph ordered me to go there, and warn him by express when the brig ap- 
peared. I had an American passport, which Mr. Jackson, charge d'aflliires 
of the United States at Paris, had given me. M. Dumoulin, established at 
Royau, exercised the office of consul of that nation. He was -an obliging 
man, and endorsed my passport, adding, without much difficulty, the name 
of one of the persons going to America with King Joseph. During the 
three or four days that we sojourned at Royau, we had to be very circum- 
spect. The commandant of the place lodged in the same hotel with us, 
and attracted there a great many officers and persons curious to be informed 
what was doing. The white flag was already hoisted at Royau. The 
second day a superior officer arrived, post from Paris, his mission being to 
have the government of the Bourbons recognised every where. His con- 
versation at table with the commandant and other military men was most 
revolting; but I had to swallow every thing in silence, in order not to betray 
myself After meals, some officers, who had read in my face what was 
passing in my mind, took me aside, and testified to me their indignation at 
hearing our brave army treated with such injustice, and foreseeing the fate 
reserved for all who expressed any sympathy for the illustrious chief whom 
we had just lost for ever. At last I learned that the brig had anchored 
before Royau. M. Dumoulin showed her to me, and we agreed tliat a 
shallop should bo ready at midnight to take us on board, with some friends 
whom I expected. I sent an express to King Joseph, who arrived in the 
night on foot, quietly, accompanied by M. Edward Pelletreau, M. Unzaga, 
and young Maillard. At twelve o'clock the bark had not yet come. We 
spent two or three hours of painful expectation. The commandant was in 
a room near us; the Prince might be recognised by some of the officers 
who were going and coming in the house; and we were relieved from a 
great weight, when they informed ns that the bark was waiting. It was 



o ( b CARET S NARRATIVE. 

the 25th of July ; the weather was beautiful ; the moon shone on our em- 
barkation, which was made cautiously. The tide being favorable, the 
anchor was raised and sails spread. The brig of two hundred tons, named 
the Commerce, was commanded by Captain Misservey, a man of about forty 
years of age, born in the island of Guernsey, but having inhabited the United 
States for a long time, at Charleston, where he was to return, after having 
transported us to New York. He did not know the illustrious passenger 
whom he received on board ; thinking that we were persons of the Empe- 
ror's suite who were going to the United States. The brig iiad been 
freighted in ballast, for eighteen thousand francs; Edward Pelletreau, ac- 
cording to his instructions, having only time to put on board some necessary 
provisions, and some pipes of brandy. We passed very near the majestic 
tower of Cordova, and soon Edward Pelletreau, taking leave of us, went 
ashore with the pilot who carried us out to sea. In the course of the day 
a sail was descried, and soon recognised to be an English vessel-of-war, 
bearing down on us — the brig Bacchus. We backed sail, to await the 
visit of two officers, who soon mounted our deck, but paid little attention to 
us passengers, and only appeared busied in gathering from the captain 
details of Napoleon's departure for England on board the Bellerophon. 
They afterwards returned to their brig, from which they soon gave us the 
signal to continue on our way. They had not examined our passports. 
King Joseph had one under the name of Surviglieri, by analogy to Survil- 
liers, which he afterwards bore, being the name of an estate he owned, 
eight leagues from Paris. Next day a new encounter with the English ; 
this time it was the frigate Endymion. The visit of the officers was more 
minute; they went down into the cabin, where the captain had refresh- 
ments served. The Prince remained in the cabin and in his berth, as a 
person suffering from sea-sickness. They examined our passports, without 
asking any questions, and, resuming their conversation with the captain, 
made him repeat the same details he had given to the officers of the Bac- 
chus. At last they withdrew, to our great satisfaction. 

"We had a pretty fortunate passage, light and fair winds carrying us on 
our way. The Prince, whose conversation had a constantly increasing 
attraction for me, made me pass very pleasant days, reciting French and 
Italian poetry equally well, his memory stored with numerous effusions of 
literature in both languages. Having passed five years of my early youth 
in Italy, I could appreciate his perfect prominciation, when he recited the 
flight of Ilerminia, and other stanzas of Tasso, his favorite author. The 
most dramatic passages of Corneille's and Racine's fine tragedies were those 
which he preferred, with which his voice assumed extraordinary power. 
With so lofty a political career, what he taught us of men and tilings was 
also very remarkable. The captain formed a high opinion without knowing 
him ; and, after our arrival in New York, said he thought it was General 
Carnot, or at least a personage of as great importance. After thirty-two 
days' sail, we discovered the shores of the United States, in Long Island, 



caret's narrative. 377 

which, for about sixty leagues in extent, presses up against the continent 
by an arm of the sea, which has taken tlie name of the East River, and 
whose soutli-west extremity forms one of the sides of the harljor of New 
York. We were about tiiirty leagues from that town, and night approach- 
ing. King Joseph asked the captain to land us on Long Island, by puttiu"- 
his boat to sea. It would have been practicable, but the captain taid that 
he would find only fishermen's huts there, where he would be very badly 
lodged, and find great difficulty in getting a carriage, or even horses, to 
take him to the town; that the weather promised to be fine, and we would 
arrive the next morning at New York. The Prince, for a long time, 
insisted on going ashore, as if he had some secret presentiment; and though 
at last he gave up the design, continued pensive, and retired early. Next 
morning, the first thing that struck us on going on deck was the tower of 
Sandy Hook and the light-house of the harbor of New York; several sail 
entering and departing, and, further off", two sliips, that we soon recognised 
as two frigates, bearing the English flag. We were mute with astonish- 
ment, especially when one of the frigates, descrying us, set sail, so as to bar 
our passage. King Joseph's just apprehensions, of the night before, were 
almost realized. At tliat critical moment we were boarded by one of those 
light schooners, which carry pilots to all the vessels that wish to enter the 
port of New York. A young American, with a quick eye, and neatly 
dressed, jumped lightly on board, and took possession of the helm. The 
helm was his right; from that moment the command of the vessel belonged 
to him. ' Do you see,' said he to the captain, * those damned English, 
hoping to stop our way. But let me alone: the breeze is in our favor, and 
I will hug the land so close tiiat you will see them soon change their 
course.' With all sail spread that could be, our brig, as if it felt the danger, 
ploughed the waters of the beautiful entrance with surprising rapidity. 
We were soon under cover of forts Richmond and La Fayette, which pro- 
tect the entrance of the second bay, or rather of the vast port of the first 
city of the United States. The frigate soon tacked about, and moved off 
from us. We then asked the pilot why the English cruised about, in these 
latitudes, in time of peace ? He answered, that tliey had only been there 
the last ten days, to catch the Emperor Napoleon, who was to have em- 
barked in France for the United States, and had resumed the right of search, 
whicfi provoked all Americans. Thus the active enmity of the English 
pursued the Emperor even after his abdication. If they had caught us, 
they would probably have taken us to Halifax, to Quebec, or pcriiaps to 
England, wliere King Joseph would soon have been recognised, and then 
they would have transported him to Russia, where the allied sovereigns had 
decided that he should be taken, as we afterwards learnt We landed on 
the wharf of the East River; and, as the Prince wished still to preserve 
his incognito for some time, he would not go to the principal hotels, but we 
installed ourselves in a modest dwelling, where a widow lady took 
lodgers. 



378 JOSEPH. 

"It was thus King Joseph escaped from his enemies, and enjoyed, during 
many years, all the independence of private life. He soon made himself 
beloved and respected, and received, at his fine country-seat on the borders 
of the Delaware, between New York and Philadelphia, the most consider- 
able persons of the United States, without distinction of party or opinion. 
His house, especially during the first few years, was like a place of refuge, 
open to all unfortunate persons whom Europe, by violent convulsions, drove 
to America. The French exiled by the decrees of Louis XVIII., military 
men of several nations, who had fought gloriously under the French flag, 
and were forced to expatriate themselves, the Prince welcomed with kind- 
ness, answered almost always with his own hand the requests that were 
addressed to him in writing, enclosing drafts or notes payable to the bearer. 
His principle was never to lend money; but he gave willingly all that he 
could, and the sums that he distributed, during the first six years, amounted 
to a considerable sum. 

"The American opinion of the Emperor and his policy was not generally 
favorable. The English had long distributed their pamphlets and journals 
among them ; and one party, especially, seemed to share their prejudices 
and animosity against the French. In the space of some years, however, 
the change of opinion, even among them, was remarkable, which may be 
attributed, partly, to the gradual effect produced by the conversations and 
explanations which Prince .loseph never failed to give. 

"He was also the benefactor of that portion of the State of New Jersey 
where he established himself; and when he took leave of tiie United States, 
in 1832, the testimonials of universal regret, addressed to him by a people 
not naturally demonstrative, touched him deeply." 

Joseph passed most of a day with Napoleon at the Isle 
d'Aix, the last time the brothers saw each other. The fallen 
Emperor conducted the fallen king to the door, when Joseph 
took his leave. Tenderly embracing, they parted, their 
attendants and nearly all bystanders in tears ; the Emperor 
looking extremely sallow and ill, having taken physic, and 
being much indisposed : trivial but actual circumstances, which 
I state on authority more reliable than that of most histoi-y or 
biography. The Emperor was surrounded by incapable and 
inefficient courtiers, gentlemen and ladies, all more anxious 
for themselves than for him ; unable to render him any 
assistance in the numberless little but important affairs every 
moment demanding practical transaction and management. 
General Lallemand was, in that respect, the best of his 
attendants ; though not as a man of probity and high-toned 
fidelity. Las Casas and Madame Bertrand were earnest in 



JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 379 

their preference of surrender to England, rather than flight to 
America ; and Joseph often blamed himself for having contri- 
buted to that option, by the opinion of the English which his 
admiration of Lord Cornwallis led him always to entertain and 
impress his brother with. 

At length, safely landed in America, as the Emperor pro- 
bably might have been, Joseph, still for some time incognito, 
and the large hotels of New York crowded, took lodgings at 
an obscure house, kept by Mrs. Powell, in Park Place, where 
the son of Commodore Lewis happened to be boarding. The 
Commodore, calling to see his son, and discovering the former 
King of Spain, whom he had known in Paris, at once respect- 
fully recognised him. Till then Joseph Bonaparte had been 
called Count Carnot, taken for that distinguished Frenchman 
by the captain of the American vessel which brought him to 
America, and visited as such by the mayor and other inhabit- 
ants of New York, who were led by Captain Misservey to 
believe, as he did, that his passenger, from whom he received 
the large freight, of which he publicly boasted, was the famous 
Carnot. Joseph told the mayor that he was not Count Carnot, 
but had reason to keep his real name secret. As Commodore 
Lewis might have made him generally known, Joseph accepted 
his invitation to pass a few days at his residence in Amboy, 
which was the first American hospitality he received. Return- 
ing to New York, a French officer, meeting him accidentally 
in Broadway, with loud and loyal exclamations and demonstra- 
tions of reverential delight, addressed Joseph as prince, king, 
&c., so that it would have been difficult, if necessary, longer 
to conceal who he was. Ignorant of American institutions, 
opinion, and freedom, he was not confident, at first, of perfect 
safety in this country. In conversation with Mr. Clay, at 
London, not long before. Lord Castlercagh, expressing his 
confidence that Napoleon would be put down, added his appre- 
hension that he might escape to the United States, which the 
British premier feared might raise an uncomfortable ({uestion 
between this country and others, as to the delivery or safe- 
keeping of that formidable fugitive from justice ; to which Mr. 
Clay,' in presence of several ministers replied : " Bonaparte 



380 JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 

■will be quite harmless among us, where individuality is anni- 
hilated, and an emperor will be a mere individual democrat, 
without the least monarchical or alarming personal power." 
Supposing it right, if indeed not absolutely necessary, as in 
Europe, to have protection from government, by a passport, 
to reside unmolested in this country, Joseph Bonaparte, soon 
after his arrival at New York, set off for Washington, to pay 
his respects to the President, and get a passport, or whatever 
other permission would be proper. Arriving at Philadelphia, 
he found much of the Mansion House hotel, where he stopped, 
preoccupied by Mr. Clay, who, with characteristic urbanity, 
insisted on Count Survilliers taking possession of his apart- 
ments at the hotel, parlor and chambers, in which the ex-king 
was comfortably and hospitably lodged. Proceeding as far 
as the tavern twelve miles beyond Baltimore, where he stopped 
to sleep, a person met him there from Washington, semi-offi- 
cially, to explain that his visit to the seat of government was 
not only unnecessary, but would not be acceptable. Mr. 
Monroe, then desiderating the presidency, apprehended, it 
was said, that a Bonaparte or his followers welcomed at Wash- 
ington, might give umbrage, and, perhaps, prove prejudicial 
to a candidate. On Marshal Grouchy and one or two more 
of the fugitives from that French convulsion going to Mrs. 
Madison's drawing-room, Mr. Monroe instantly left it, as was 
said, least he should be implicated in civilities to them, of 
which Marshal Grouchy complained to me, as what he called 
platitude meprisable, despicable meanness. Turned back from 
his contemplated visit to Washington, Joseph purchased next 
year, after extensive views of various places Stephen Sayre's 
(once sheriff of London) estate on the Delaware, near Bor- 
dentown, in New Jersey; the location which Napoleon and 
Joseph had selected at Rochefort, on the map, for their Ame- 
rican residence. There Joseph Bonaparte, by the assumed 
title of Count of Survilliers, in imitation of royal denomina- 
tion, taken from his French estate near Morfontaine, made his 
home during five-and-twenty years of American sojourn ; 
travelling occasionally, and, after his visit to England, spend- 
ing some of his last winters in one of the Girard houses, 



JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 381 

Chestnut Street, riiiladelphia. Ilis Point Breeze property 
■was enlarged, by successive purchases, to comprise two thou- 
sand acres, which it vras his great recreation to improve by 
planting and embellishing with buildings, -waters, and roads, so 
constructed that he had a drive of ten miles on his own 
grounds. After the original mansion-house was destroyed by 
fire, in January, 1820, he rebuilt that as an observatory or 
Belvidere, and turned the former coach-house into a dwelling, 
adapted to the purposes of habitation, with a range of 
kitchens and servants* apartments on one side, and on the 
opposite side of the front lawn, another considerable building, 
for his married daughter and her husband, with their growing 
family. Rising always early, and spending nearly all of almost 
every day abroad, with a hatchet in his side-pocket, and thirty, 
forty, or fifty workmen, trimming and planting trees, making 
roads through the woods and along the Delaware, which, more 
than a mile wide there, borders a finely picturesque park of 
rolling hill and dale, the Count, as he was generally called, or 
Mister Bonaparte, lived in quiet, gentlemanly, hospitable, 
beneficent, and philosophical retirement, rendering himself 
acceptable to the neighborhood by his uniform amenity, sim- 
plicity, and liberality, entertaining numerous visiters, and en- 
hancing the value of property in the adjoining village, which 
doubled its inhabitants under his auspices. A lake was arti- 
ficially formed from a small stream emptying into the Dela- 
ware, and a subterranean passage of brick and mason-work 
built from the original mansion, afterwards the Belvidere, to 
the river, and from the second-built dwelling to the wing on 
the lake. Underground communications were made wuth both 
his houses at Point Breeze ; with that which was, after the fire, 
turned into an observatory, called Belvidere, from the river ; 
and with the coach-house made into a dwelling, with the lateral 
lake-house, built for his eldest daughter and her family. Joseph 
had a similar subterranean at Morfontaine, his French resi- 
dence, and such contrivances, I believe, are not uncommon in 
England. They aSbrd private entrance for the baker, butcher, 
and others, who supply families, without being seen in the 
■upper and better part of the house ; and allow gentlemen to 



382 FRENCH EXILES. 

go clown into them, when sometimes they do not choose to be 
importuned by visiters ; in which way, but none other, Joseph 
Bonaparte may have concealed himself in his. The subter- 
ranean passage gave occasion for some of the absurdities with 
which public opinion was misled concerning the ex-king, his 
residence and deportment. The subterranean, constructed 
merely to afford a passage, without being exposed to the 
weather, was reported to be for escape underground from 
pursuit ; which, it is hardly necessary to say, was a foolish 
notion. In 1817, the Legislature of New Jersey, by a special 
act, authorized Joseph Bonaparte to hold and transmit real 
property in that State ; and, in 1825, the Legislature of New 
York made a similar provision in his favor. In 1821 and 1823, 
his two daughters, from Europe, with the elder's husband, 
Charles Bonaparte, visited their father. In 1824, the younger 
unmarried one, Charlotte, returned to her mother, then at 
Brussels, leaving many of the chambers in her father's house 
covered with her drawings. In 1827, the elder daughter, with 
her husband and children, returned to Europe, by President 
John Quincy Adams' permission, on board the American ship- 
of-the-line Delaware. Marshal Grouchy, General Clausel, Ge- 
neral Bernard, Generals Charles and Henry Lallemand, General 
Lefebvre Denouettes, General Vandamme, Colonel Combes, 
Colonel Amable de Girardin, Colonel Latapie, Colonel and 
Captain Grouchy, the two sons of the marshal, all officers of 
the French army, exiled to this country, frequented the Count 
of Survilliers' hospitable residence ; also Regnaud de St. Jean 
d'Angely ; Count Real, the prefect of police ; Count Miot de 
Melito, an old friend of Joseph and one of his ministers in 
Spain ; M. Lacanalle, a member of the National Institute in 
France ; Count Quinette, ex-prefect ; the present Duke of 
Montebello, son of Marshal Lannes ; Eugene Ney, third son 
of the marshal; two sons of Fouche, well-educated and intel- 
ligent young men ; nearly all of whom I have met there. 
Other less conspicuous French, besides Americans, English, 
and persons of other nations, were welcomed to the constant 
but unostentatious hospitality of Point Breeze ; where personal 
or political attachment, curiosity, necessity, and various other 



POINT BREEZE. 383 

motives attracted many persons. A cup of coffee, or tea, as 
you chose, brought by a servant before you were out of bed 
in the morning ; a meat breakfast, between ten and eleven 
o'clock ; a good library ; the host's prolonged and unceasing 
historical and biographical narrative ; horses and carriages, 
for excursions in the vicinity ; shooting, fishing, or whatever 
pastime you desired, till evening ; dinner between six and 
seven ; a drive round the grounds, a game of bilhards, or some 
other amusement, after dinner, till an early bed-time, seldom, 
if ever, later than ten o'clock, were commonly the day's rou- 
tine. On Sunday, or any day when crowds of persons, by 
steamboats from Philadelphia, visited the house and grounds, 
pictures, busts, and whatever else was remarkable, all thrown 
open to all, the French inmates were as much gratified by the 
invariable decorum and orderly conduct of their guests, as 
they were, by the French furniture, ornaments and arrange- 
ment of the ex-king's residence. The Legislature of New 
Jersey, sometimes in a body, visited there, and were gladly 
entertained, their host boasting, as I have heard him, with 
evident gratification, how many bottles of wine they had 
drunk. His domestic service consisted of a secretary and his 
very handsome wife, a confidential attendant, four or five men- 
servants, and a coachman, with the cook who went with the 
Count from France, and on his first voyage to England, all 
of whom grew rich (for them) on his bounty. The Fourth of 
July was celebrated at Point Breeze by all the immediate 
vicinage, with the household. I have heard it said that the 
deportment of the ex-king and his household affected royalty, 
which certainly I never saw, as well as one ignorant of royal 
forms may judge. A gentleman who had been eight years a 
king, brother of the greatest monarch of modern times, and 
not without recollections of recent elevation, was accustomed, 
from his dependants, to that respect which is hardly ever with- 
held from age alone in Europe, though much less practised in 
this country of domestic and personal, political, and, some- 
times, peremptory independence. But the Count of Survil- 
liers was, in his manners and behavior, unassuming and polite, 
studious to please, and careful to avoid annoyance or offence ; 



384 JOSEPH BONAPARTE. 

as simple, unpretending, and direct, as any farmer in liis 
neighborhood. From early life accustomed to good society, in 
the chief places of France and Italy, and habituated to social 
refinements, his behavior was the polished suavity and forbear- 
ance of the best good-breeding : in mixed company, reserved, 
though unaffected ; free and loquaciously communicative with 
those from whom he apprehended no misrepresentation. Con- 
tinually, and with unfeigned pleasure, he recalled the humble 
life of the well-born, but indigent family, who, from total 
obscurity, shone forth with so many kings, queens, and princes, 
upon plebeian thrones. Like all those retired from the stage 
of action, with a long past and short future, Joseph delighted 
to tell of the wonderful scenes and performers he had wit- 
nessed ; and never was conversation more rationally fascinating 
than his in that respect. "When I first heard him chat, as he 
would for hours together, personally familiar with nearly all 
the imperial, royal, princely, and eminent personages he 
described ; all of them, like the subjects of an absolute mo- 
narch, whatever their rank or title, from Joseph's lofty position, 
individuated, levelled and estimated Avith perfect freedom and 
candor — it was reading history, biography, politics, and phi- 
losophy in their most attractive pages. Of the Emperor, he 
always spoke with affection and admiration ; of the Bourbons, 
always with aversion ; of the banishment, confiscations, and 
other wrongs which they inflicted on the Bonapartes, with 
indignation ; but, always mild, though animated, he seldom 
used harsh or vituperative language. He could not, and sel- 
dom, if ever, attempted to speak English. His secretaries 
and servants conversed with him with more freedom than is 
common, in this country or England, between menials and 
their employers. Recollections of former grandeur, and a 
feeling that he was entitled to the respect due to past or fallen 
royalty, sometimes appeared in Joseph Bonaparte's conversa- 
tion. His French visitors and correspondents mostly addressed 
him as prince ; and probably that title was no more unwelcome 
than that of emperor to his brother. He seldom or never, as 
was common in his family, spoke of King Louis, King Jerome, 
Queen Hortensia, Queen Julia, and Queen Caroline. Titles, 



JOSEPH BOXAPARTE. 385 

everywhere convenient, are mucli affected in this republican 
country, although constitutionally forbid. The Society of 
Friends, who reject even Esquire and Mister, many of them, 
in polite conversation, are often perplexed for words to sub- 
stitute as conversational terms of civility. Vanity, a universal 
inclination of savages, and even beasts, is there any humanity 
without, or even above it? Joseph Bonaparte declined the 
crown of Mexico, when tendered to him at Point Breeze by a 
Mexican deputation. Flattered as he felt by that proffer from 
former Spanish subjects, who once repudiated his reign, he 
told them that, after having worn two crowns, he had no wish 
to try a third ; and that, moreover, he did not consider Ame- 
rica the soil suited to thrones. All his American experience 
convinced him that free institutions are best for this hemi- 
sphere. In fact, his attachment, even when king, to the 
reforms of the French Revolution of 1789, remained con- 
stantly the same : the royal parts he was called on to perform, 
and even his brother's imperial dictatorship, Joseph deemed 
corollaries of that great problem, whose meliorations he never 
for a moment ceased to prefer and inculcate. 

Like Napoleon, however, Joseph was inflexibly conservative ; 
dreaded and detested such demagogues as those who ruled in \ 
the Reign of Terror ; and, addicted to both equality and liberty, f 
was invincibly attached to law and order, perhaps to royalty, 
but constitutional and, like that of England, mixed with demo- 
cratic institutions. lie told me, after his return from Eng- 
land, that what he learned there, by comparison between that 
country and this, had changed some of his former American 
political predilections ; though while there he was uniformly 
the vindicator of our establishments, but became reconciled to I 
many of the great British endowments and developments of 
moderate, conservative, and durable freedom. What the Eng- 
lish stigmatized as American repudiation of public debts, oc- 
curred while he was in England, and he was a considerable j 
loser by American stock investments. The tariff controvertsy. 
too, settled in 1832-3, alarmed him abroad for the stability 
of our Union ; and he often told me of, I forget Avhat English 
bishop, who said to him, " What better can there be, or should 

Vol. III. — 25 



386 LA FAYETTE. 

we desire, than the state of things here?" Lucien inclined to 
the Tories, Joseph said ; but Joseph to the Whigs, if not the 
radicals ; and the passage of the Reform Bill had much in- 
fluence in inducing him to change his residence when he did, 
from America to England. 

La Fayette's misplaced confidence in the Bourbons was 
soon requited bj aversion, and in 182-1 he made his well- 
known visit to America On the 23d of September, 1824, 
with the Governor of New Jersey, he paid a visit at Point 
Breeze to Joseph Bonaparte, negotiator of the treaty by which 
La Fayette was liberated from the odious Austrian prison of 
Olmutz. The General's secretary, Levasseur, says that the 
ex-king appeared much affected by that visit from the guest 
of the nation, whom he kept to dinner, and treated with a 
sensibility and cordiality which convinced La Fayette that 
time had not enfeebled the sentiments of affection formerly 
testified by Joseph. Before dinner Joseph took La Fayette 
into his study, where they passed an houj- together in private, 
of which no account is given by the General's secretary. The 
substance of that conference, as often since told by Joseph 
Bonaparte, was La Fayette's acknowledgment of his regret at 
what he had then done to reinstate the Bourbons. " Their 
dynasty," he said, "could not last; it clashed too much with 
French national sentiment. We are all now persuaded in 
France that the Emperor's son will be the best representative 
of the reforms of the revolution." He therefore told Joseph, 
that, if he would put two millions of francs ($400,000) at the 
disposal of the committee La Fayette indicated, with that lever, 
in two years Napoleon II. would be on the French throne. 
Joseph declined the proposal, not deeming the means adequate 
to the end. As love of money was no part of his nature, it 
was not the magnitude of the sum that deterred him. When 
it was suggested that by means of a large sum Napoleon might 
be rescued from St. Helena, Joseph, without hesitation, offered 
to contribute all he was worth in the world ; and sometimes 
regretted that his expensive mode of life in America, parts of 
which, however, were liberal donations to distressed or impo- 
verished followers of his family, diminished his power to afford, 



LA FAYETTE. 387 

if needed, larger subscriptions toward the expulsion from 
France of the dull dynasty that mortified and oppressed the 
nation. Joseph and La Fayette parted on the kindest terras, 
which were never interrupted, although six years afterwards 
they differed as much as ever on La Fayette's last, and again 
unfortunate, instrumentality in the attempt to restore a Bour- 
bon monarch. 

M. Levasseur's work mentions the rich wainscots of the 
ex-king's American house, the display of royal furniture, fine 
paintings of the Italian and French schools of painting, ex- 
quisite bronzes, and marble in elegant profusion. But among 
them all he thought Joseph did not look happy, because he 
had not altogether forgot the misfortune he had of being king, 
when the peaceable possession of so large and fine a property 
seemed to jM. Levasseur, who probably spoke La Fayette's 
sentiment also, preferable to that of the distracted kingdom 
of Spain. On the expulsion of Charles X. from the French 
throne, mainly by La Fayette's instrumentality, correspond- 
ence took place between him and Joseph Bonaparte, kind and 
friendly, yet explicit and controversial, as to the once noble 
republican general's frequent, indeed constant, preferences of 
Bourbon monarchs to Napoleon. Joseph always held that, on 
several great conjunctures, La Fayette misjudged French in- 
terest, welfare, and glory : once by his flight from the head 
of the French army, in 1792 ; again, by his acquiescence in 
the Bourbon restoration of 1815 ; and a third time, when he 
helped the Duke of Orleans to the throne ; all calamitous for 
his country. Perhaps the vanity and self-esteem inseparable 
from humanity rendered General La Fayette jealous of Gene- 
ral Bonaparte. Nor will it be unjust to add, that La Fayette, 
as an emigrant, received, if I am not mistaken, considerable 
sums as indemnity for confiscated property, voted to his family 
by the French chambers under the Bourbon government. 
Like Napoleon, never moved by avaricious or sordid consi- 
derations. La Fayette's sympathies of caste were, however, 
■with the royalists; and, if not incapable of jealousy, that feel- 
ing, as general, may have been excited by the immense supe- 
riority of another general. 



388 REVOLUTION OF 1830. 

Bj expelling tliat extremely weak prince and one of the few 
remaining adherents of Bourbon royalty, Charles X,, the 
French revolution of 1830, with its prodigious agitation of all 
the elements of representative government, not only in France, 
but in Belgium, Italy, England, and elsewhere, anticipated 
the Bonaparte hope of restoration, at least to France, and 
peradventure to power. Two days after intelligence of that 
event reached this country, on the 5th of September, I visited 
Joseph at Point Breeze, on the occasion ; where I found Gene- 
ral Charles Lallemand (Henry Lallemand died sometime before) 
and a French deputy, Beslay, just from France, all in much 
excitement. A letter from Joseph, in answer to one from 
Lallemand, proposing to accompany him to France, Switzer- 
land, or England, in order to be at hand for eventualities, and 
announcing the principles by which Joseph would be governed, 
was prepared for publication, with strong hopes that no Bour- 
bon would be enthroned, and that the resulting question be- 
tween a republic and Napoleon II. would be decided by his 
choice by the nation. Joseph's doctrine was, that the nation 
had the sole right to choose and legitimate ; but that Napo- 
leon's son had the right of succession, without further action, 
as proclaimed by the deputies in 1815, unless the nation made 
some other choice. France he did not deem ripe for a re- 
public ; and, any Bourbon king being out of the question, the 
only alternative was the young Napoleon; which postulates 
were argued by Joseph's letter to Lallemand. Soon after, 
Lallemand sailed for France, with Joseph's letters and several 
thousand dollars advanced to him. The money he never ac- 
counted for ; the letters he delivered to King Louis Philippe, 
who told him, as I have understood, to burn them ; that nothing 
by or for the Bonaparte family could be done ; but that the 
Orleanists and Bonapartes had the same interest in France, 
and that he would employ them, as he did Lallemand, against 
the old Bourbons. 

On the 19th of September, Joseph came again to Philadel- 
phia, and sent for me to the United States Hotel, where, after 
dining at seven o'clock in the evening, he read to me his seve- 
ral letters to the Empress Maria Louisa, to her father, to 



REVOLUTION OF 1830. 389 

Prince Metternich, and to the French Chamber of Deputies ; 
all asserting the Duke of Rcichstadt's rightful succession, 
and proposing, as his father's nearest male relative, to accom- 
pany his restoration. As I suggested the propriety of con- 
sulting with Mr. Duponceau, whose counsel as a laAvyer and 
services as notary public Joseph had often used, we went to 
his office, and remained there in conference till eleven o'clock 
that night. After considering the several letters, it was 
settled that I should translate and publish Joseph's answer to 
General Lallemand, as announcement of Joseph's intention, 
motives, and principles. But next morning, the 20th of Sep- 
tember, came tidings from Europe of the proclamation of the 
Duke of Orleans, as Louis Philippe, King of the French, in- 
ducing me to withhold the intended publication ; of which I 
immediately informed Joseph, Avho had gone to Point Breeze, 
and received his letter in answer to mine, approving of it. 
There were publications in newspapers ; but the only one ac- 
knowledged was Joseph's letter to the Chamber of Deputies, 
dated New York, the 18th of September, 1830. Informa- 
tion that the French had chosen a Bourbon monarch, with 
La Fayette's entire approbation, and with great promise of 
liberal government, sustained by many if not most of the 
distinguished Bonapartists, and their general emplo3'ment, 
induced Joseph, under such cii'cumstances, merely to verify 
his letter to the deputies, and make notarial registry of it, 
as a protest. That was not done till the 30th of May, 
1831, when Judge Hopkinson and I testified before Mr. 
Duponceau that we had seen the letter towards the middle 
of September, 1830. Judge Hopkinson having no memo- 
randum, as I had, to fix the time precisely, towards the 
middle of the month was the phrase used for his sake. 
Joseph attended at Mr. Duponceau's office, and made arrange- 
ments for the official act on the 24th of May, 1831 ; from which 
time till the 30th of that month Mr. Duponceau was employed 
drawing the papers in form. Between the 24th and 30th of 
May, 1831, advices reached here that the Chamber of Depu- 
ties was dissolved to whom the letter in September, 1830, was 
addressed ; whereupon Joseph required the official act to 



390 REVOLUTION OF 1830. 

bear date the 24th of May, when he attended at Mr. Dupon- 
ceau's and arranged it, instead of the 30th of May, when 
the registry was actually completed and made. These contra- 
ventions of the 20th September, 1830, and May, 1831, fore- 
shadowed the ill luck which, by the death of the Duke of 
Reichstadt, totally marred Joseph's voyage to England, in 
1832. 

Joseph wrote on that occasion, probably, to several confiden- 
tial persons in France for information, to determine whether 
he should venture there, or anywhere in Europe ; anxious to 
return to his country, and hoping that it might be as uncle of 
a new young monarch, to supersede the Bourbon family. The 
question between monarchy by divine right and sovereignty of 
the people was fully presented by the French election of the 
Duke of Orleans ; notwithstanding whose election and support 
also by the English nation, the Bonapartes flattered themselves 
that they would be recalled from banishment, and perhaps to 
the throne. Among those Joseph wrote to in September, 1830, 
was Count Flahaut, a nobleman of the imperial creation, reputed 
son of Talleyrand by Madame de Sousa, wife of the Portuguese 
minister in France during the Consulate and part of the Em- 
pire. Talleyrand, a lover of Madame de Stael, who was not 
handsome, and Madame de Sousa, who was, in a boat with 
Madame de Stael, on Lake Geneva, being asked by her, " If 
Madame de Sousa and I were both in this boat, and it should 
upset, which would you save?" wittily replied, "You can 
swim, I believe ?" Count Flahaut, distinguished at the battle 
of Waterloo by the bravery so common there, and still more 
by honorable adherence to the Emperor till he abdicated, mar- 
ried an English lady of fortune. 

On the 25th of May, 1831, Joseph read to me his answer, 
dated London the 10th of March, to Joseph's letter of inquiry 
whether he might safely go to England. Count Flahaut in- 
formed him that he would be perfectly safe in England, but 
unwelcome, inasmuch as the British government and nation 
sided with Louis Philippe, as king of the French. 

Joseph's first act, after the news of the French revolution, 
was to write to La Fayette, on the 7th of September, 1830, a 



REVOLUTION OF 1830. 391 

letter, to be carried by General Lallcmand ; but, he being 
detained a few days by an accident, it was carried by Victor 
Beslay, son of the liberal deputy of the French house of repre- 
sentatives, whom I met at Joseph's residence. Protesting 
against any Bourbon as ruler of France, and laying down his 
favorite positions, that individual families have duties to per- 
form, in their relations to nations, but nations alone have 
rights to exercise, and among them that of choosing their own 
rulers, Joseph assured La Fayette that, but for perceiving the 
name of the Duke of Orleans among those at the head of 
affairs, he would go at once to France — not forgetting that his 
nephew had been called to the throne by the deputies, in 
1815, dispersed by foreign bayonets. On the 26th of No- 
vember, 1830, La Fayette answered, as his letter begins, 
" with all the affection and respect for the kindnesses of which 
you have at all times given me proofs, and for which my gra- 
titude and attachment could not but be fortified by our last 
conversation, when we spoke confidentially of the past, the 
present, and the future." His letter then explains at large 
why he preferred Louis Philippe to Napoleon — "-your im- 
' mense and incomparable brother, but whose system, imbued 
with despotism, aristocracy, servility, and war, would, with 
glory, restore those scourges." La Fayette's reasons for per- 
sonally preferring Louis Philippe are also stated, completely 
reversed as that judgment soon came to be. On the 15th of 
January, 1831, Joseph replied by a letter (which, having been 
mislaid, did not go till again dated, on the 1st of April, with a 
postscript), defending the Emperor, "forced by the English 
to war, and by war to dictatorship ; which four words contain 
the whole history of the Empire, whose aristocracy was but 
the method of reconciling Europe to it." After Joseph's ar- 
rival in England, La Fayette wrote to him again, the 13th of 
October, 1832, in terms of grateful and afi'ectionate attach- 
ment ; to which, on the 10th of November, 1832, Joseph 
replied, with similar regard. 

Joseph received many letters, from various persons in 
France, encouraging his return, by assurances of the favorable 
state of public opinion to the imperial family, and to its juuc- 



392 EEVOLUTION OF 1830. 

tion with the republicans, to constitute a national party against 
the royalists. Victor Beslay, whom I met at Point Breeze 
the preceding September, wrote to that effect, as did also Co- 
lonel Coombes (afterwards killed before Constantino, in Al- 
giers), whose letters Joseph read to me the 4th of April, 1831. 
At the same time, he read to me a letter from one of the two 
sons of Fouche, who came to this country, each with the title 
of Count Otrante, according to the French, unlike the English, 
method or license of distributing a father's title in parcels 
among all his sons, instead of leaving it exclusively to the 
eldest. As before mentioned, Fouche died at Eliza Bonaparte, 
Princess of Bacchiocci's residence, near Trieste, completely dis- 
graced by the Bourbons he helped to restore, and repentant 
for the injury he had done to the Bonapartes : rich enough 
to make his several sons rich ; two of whom, after having 
been kindly received by Bernadotte, as King of Sweden, 
came to this country. Joseph Bonaparte, with his constant 
benevolence, having made them welcome at his residence, 
where I met one of them, on the occasion of the revolution 
of 1830, employed him to take his letters to the Empress 
Maria Louisa, to her father, and to Prince Metternich. On 
the 4th of April, 1831, Joseph read to me Count Otrante's 
answer, dated, I forget where, in Prussia, stating that ho 
had delivered all the letters to Metternich, who promised an 
answer. The Count Otrante added, that he had frequently 
seen the Duke of Reichstadt. I do not remember Avhether 
he stated that he had conversed with him. No answer to 
any of these letters was ever received. The impression 
in Joseph's family was, that Metternich never delivered 
them. 

Besides the many letters and messages received by Count 
Survilliers, in 1831, came M. Goubard, a portrait painter, 
and M. Orsi, son of a Leghorn banker, in December of 
that year, sent by Hortensia, the wife of Louis Bonaparte, 
and her son Louis, urging Joseph to go, assuring him that the 
movement was propitious for overcoming Louis Philippe ; 
who, though they did not prevail on him to go, yet their 



DUKE OF REICIISTADT. 393 

coming impressed him with strong hopes, and tended toward 
the resolution which he finally took. 

The centre of Bonaparte attraction and hope of the f;imily, 
on the expulsion of the elder Bourbon branch, was the Duke 
of Rcichstadt, then a fine, handsome, intelligent youth, twenty 
years of age. Proclaimed successively King of Rome, Em- 
peror of the French, Duke of Parma, and Austrian Prince, by 
the title of Duke of Reichstadt, the birth, life, and death 
of that offspring of Napoleon's rash ambition, and, as was be- 
lieved, completion of his utmost hopes, were among the most 
romantic occurrences of the imperial reverse, the lamentable 
catastrophe of which began with the marvellous consummation 
of that child's being torn, apparently dead, from his mother, 
and, for several minutes, without sign of life, ushered into the 
world. Brought up in the close but kind seclusion of the 
Austrian imperial family, and there deprived of his first name. 
Napoleon II. lived to man's estate, without knowing whose 
sou he was, or ever hearing of his father's exploits, filling the 
whole globe, except the son's otherwise well-informed and in- 
quisitive understanding. Instructed by those who destroyed 
and ruined his father, the Duke of Reichstadt was at last ap- 
prised, by Marmont, of his marvellous paternity and all its 
prodigies. Such disclosures were enough to unhinge any mind, 
and in that of a youth so deeply interested, full of intelligence, 
distracted between admiration for his hero -father and habitual 
veneration for his affectionate imperial grandfather, excited a 
storm of conflicting emotions, which the French revolution 
raised to intolerable perjilexity. The immediate author of 
his father's ruin was the son's informer. The father's Bour- 
bon supplanters had banished the son and all his family from 
France, on pain of death. At an English ambassador's young 
Napoleon became acquainted with INIarmont. Another of 
his father's generals, Maison, was the ambassador at Vienna 
of Louis Philippe, who, with jealous rigor, continued the law 
of banishment against the Bonapartes. Revolution threat- 
ened, war appeared inevitable. The Duke of Reichstadt 
was, like most other princes, bred to arms. Not to use them 
in case of war would be disreputable ; to bear them against 



394 DUKE or REICHSTADT. 

either France or Austria would be unnatural. Vienna was 
thronged by emissaries from France and for France, and from 
the Bonapartes, from various places of their dispersion, in 
Europe and America. Montbel, one of the ministers expelled 
■with Charles X., a refugee at Vienna, whose position and as- 
sociations gave him the best opportunities of indubitable infor- 
mation, says, that a personage, whose name was celebrated in 
the fasts of the Revolution and the Empire, and mixed with 
every epoch of their revolutionary convulsions, always famed 
for talents by the various parties he served, Fouche, visited the 
Austrian capital, with positive proposals for the Duke of Reich- 
stadt, under the veil of a quite different mission, whose proposal 
was listened to with such chilling coldness that he soon went 
away. Numerous other attempts were made to get the young 
duke to show himself either in France or Italy; carefully 
developed by circumstantial expositions, explaining the state 
of parties and resources, their means and objects, and the 
danger to all the rest of Europe of leaving France without a 
settled government. "What do you want," said Metternieh, 
" and what do you expect from us?" " That you will let the 
young Duke of Reichstadt be taken to the frontiers of France, 
where the magic of Napoleon's name will, in an instant, over- 
turn the frail, tottering edifice, weighing down our country 
and menacing yours with ruin. We want monarchy by inhe- 
ritance, but with the will of the people declared by universal 
suffrage." " What guarantee would the Duke of Reichstadt 
have for his future ?" " The ramparts that would surround 
him of French love and courage." Metternieh rejected all 
these instances, until young Napoleon, not long after, expired, 
under the agitation, distress, and disappointment of his pre- 
dicament. Perhaps the bravest, certainly the most adven- 
turous, of his Bonaparte rescuers, like the Duchess of Angou- 
leme, whom Napoleon called the only man of her family, was 
Eliza's only child, married to the Italian Count Camarata, 
who boldly undertook, by herself, to snatch her cousin, the 
young Napoleon, from Austrian thraldom, and display him 
before the French nation. What the result of her success 
would have been cannot be said ; but that it Avould have driven 



THE CAMARATA. 395 

Louis Philippe from France, as triumphantly as Napoleon 
drove Louis XVIIL, is as certain as the excitability of French 
enthusiasm and the romantic spirit of French adventure. 
One evening, as the Duke of Reichstadt was mounting the 
staircase of the palace, a young woman, wrapped in a Scotch 
plaid cloak, rapidly approached him, seized his hand, which, 
in mute fervour, she kissed, with a look of extreme tenderness. 
"What are you doing there?" cried the prince's attendant, 
both of them astonished. "What do you mean?" "Who 
shall refuse," said she, with exalted animation, "my kissing 
the hand of my sovereign's son ?" and then disappeared. A 
full-length likeness of that extraordinary woman, when a young 
girl, was among the statues at Point Breeze : remarkable 
always for her strong resemblance to Napoleon in face, mind, 
and disposition. With the most active imagination and daunt- 
less resolution, she excels in riding on horseback, handling 
fire-arms, and other attributes of masculine spirit. Leaving 
her Italian residence, she repaired to Vienna, without any dis- 
guise or male protector, established herself at the Swan Hotel, 
in the much frequented street Carynthia, rode in the Prater 
and about the environs of Vienna, wherever there was any 
chance of meeting the Duke of Reichstadt, and for a long time 
sought in vain opportunities of personal communication with 
him. Accosting him, as before described, one evening she at 
length contrived to have a letter laid on his table, which it 
took a whole week after it was written to get there, dated the 
17th, but not received by him till the 24th of November, 1831, 
signed with her name, Napoleone Camarata, stating that the 
man who delivered it would take charge of the prince's ansAver, 
and that, if he was a man of honor, he would not refuse her 
one. " It is the third time I have written to you. Let me 
know if you have received my letters, and whether you mean 
to act as an Austrian archduke or a French prince. If the 
former, give me back my letters. Destroying me, will elevate 
your condition ; but, if you take my advice, and act like a man, 
you will see how obstacles give way to a strong, calm Avill. 
You will find a thousand ways of speaking Avith me, which I 
cannot take alone. You can have no hope, but in yourself. 



396 DUKE OF REICHSTADT. 

Let not the idea present itself to you of confiding in any one. 
Know that if I asked to speak with you before a hundred wit- 
nesses, my request would be refused. Know that you are 
dead for whatever is French — for your family. In the name 
of the horrible torments to which the kings of Europe have 
condemned your father ; think of that agony of the banished 
by which they made him expiate the crime of having been too 
generous to them ; think that you are his son — that his dying 
eyes Avere fixed on your image. Penetrate yourself with so 
many horrors, and impose on their authors no other punish- 
ment than seeing you seated on the throne of France. Take 
advantage of the moment, Prince. I have, perhaps, said too 
much. My fate is in your hands ; and I can tell you that, if 
you use my letters to destroy me, the idea of your baseness will 
cause me more pain than all that others can make me suffer." 
The Camarata's romantic adventure came to nothing. Her 
cousin, grandson of Maria Theresa and son of Napoleon, had 
been too well schooled in Austrian pupillage, to countenance 
her. Handing her letters and telling her adventure to his 
tutor, the young duke gave her no answer. She was left un- 
molested, and he continued perplexed till he died. His illness 
increased so rapidly that Metternich, in the Emperor's absence, 
granted the physician's desire, that the moribund youth should 
try a change of air : permitting him to travel anywhere, except 
in France. Delighted with that, his first and last liberty, the 
prince was preparing to visit Naples. But his symptoms grew 
much worse ; and, on the 22d of July, 1831, he expired, in 
the room where his father slept, when he dictated to his future 
son's grandfather the peace, of which the dearest trophy was 
the Austrian wife he there conquered, in whose arms to dream 
of perpetuating their dynasty, but who, from the corpse of her 
imperial orphan son, returned to her one-eyed paramour and 
bastards in Parma. 

On the 9th of April, 1831, Joseph read to me a letter from 
Baron Meneval (his former secretary, and the Emperor's, and 
who attended the Empress when she returned from France to 
Germany), and a letter from Count Cornaro, who had been an 
aid-de-camp of Eugene Beauharnois, both letters dated in 



JOSEPH BONAPARTE. 397 

Paris, and abounding -with particulars unfavorable to Louis 
Philippe and promising for the Bonapartes. Cornaro's letter, 
addressed to Joseph as "your majesty," stated that either 
Lucicn Bonaparte, or Louis, the son of Louis, married to 
Joseph's younger daughter, Charlotte, svould be chosen king 
of Italy. Many other accounts, from appointed agents as well 
as friendly correspondents in France and England, encouraged 
Joseph's return, and recommended certain expenditures, which, 
to no great amount and to no good end, he incurred for agents 
and presses to advance his family : one, I remember, for the 
Globe newspaper. 

In November, 1831, Mr. Poinsett, since minister to Mexico 
and Secretary of War, returned from Europe, strongly im- 
pressed with the belief that the Duke of Reichstadt would be 
called to the French throne, if his uncle Joseph put himself at 
the head of the movement ; to whom, at Mr. Poinsett's in- 
stance, I made it known. Joseph then read to me a letter 
from Victor Hugo, confirming Mr. Poinsett's impression ; also 
a letter from Dr. Stockoe (who had been with the Emperor at 
St. Helena), enclosing a copy of a note from Lord Grey to 
Sir Robert Wilson, conceding Joseph's right to visit England 
unmolested, but denying its propriety. On the 21st of De- 
cember, 1831, Joseph read to me letters from Count Cornaro 
and Madame de St. Jean d'Angely, dated Paris, from Achilles 
Murat, in Brussels, and from M. Peugnet, at New York, just 
arrived from France, all strongly urging Joseph to place him- 
self in England or Switzerland, at hand to sustain a movement 
for the overthrow of Louis Philippe and restoration of the Bo- 
napartes, which these letters represented as highly probable. 
The republicans were said to be ready to join the Bonapartists, 
fur whom, in the Chamber of Deputies, Mauguin, Salverte, 
Lamarque, D'Argenson, and other members, were mentioned 
us favorable to Napoleon II. Neither money nor any kind of 
clandestine contrivance was deemed necessary or advisable, 
according to those accounts, or would be of any avail, but 
events would develope themselves, and all that need be done 
v.as to be at hand to second them. Joseph came to Philadel- 
phia on the 24th of December, 1831, to get Stephen Girard 



Sy« FRENCH IN AMERICA. 

to buy the Black River lands he had purchased of Leray de 
Chaumont ; to be sold, he told -me, at almost any price, in 
order to raise funds for his voyage, resolved to be undertaken 
next spring, should the Reform Bill become an English Act of 
Parliament ; for in that reform he appeared to place much hope 
of French movemeMt to produce imperial restoration. Within 
forty-eight hours of his visiting Philadelphia to bargain with 
Stephen Girard, that aged French republican died of an attack 
of influenza, his demise being one of the several untoward cir- 
cumstances which, Avith his nephew's unexpected death encoun- 
tering Joseph Bonaparte on his landing in England, continually 
counteracted all his plans, until at last, with his nephew Louis 
Napoleon's frustrated attempt forcibly to overthrow Louis 
Philippe, disappointment broke down Joseph's health and 
hastened his dissolution. 

Early in June, 1831, I had the pleasure to meet my former 
Bonapartist friend M. Serrurier (the Emperor's minister in this 
country at his downfal) and his charming wife. Degraded for 
his unluckily hasty, hearty adhesion to the Emperor during his 
last hundred days, and reduced thereby to insignificance, M. Ser- 
rurier lived fifteen years in retirement and poverty. One of 
Louis Philippe's early acts was to reappoint him to the American 
mission, in which he officiated till soon after that pacific but 
able king's seeming controversy with President Jackson, for 
the French indemnity stipulated by treaty to be paid by France 
to the United States, drove M. Serrurier home from this coun- 
try, where he had no intercourse with the brother of his former 
monarch. In 1831, M. de Tocqueville and M. Beaumont, 
commissioned by the French king to report on the subject of 
American prisons, and recommended personally by letters of 
introduction from Levett Harris, American charge d'affaires in 
Paris, came to the United States, also, I believe, without see- 
ing Joseph Bonaparte. This country, full of imperial French 
fugitives in 1815, as ten years before it was of royal emigrants, 
including Louis Philippe, by his election in 1830 as king, re- 
turned them all but the Bonaparte fiimily to their own country. 
Throughout the winter of 1831-2, the following spring and 
summer, Joseph still lingered here, but bent on his European 



JOSEPH'S DEPARTURE. 899 

voyage. His argument was, tliat, as eldest of the Emperor's 
family, it Avas his duty to afford his adherents the opportunity, 
■which they nearly all assured him was good, for restoring the 
Bonaparte authority. Peter, one of the sons of Lucien, a 
Avild, handsome youth, sent by Joseph to serve under General 
Santander, in South America, was with him at Point Breeze 
in May, 1832. On the 5th of that month, Joseph told mc 
that, although he considered things unpromising for the Duke 
of Beichstadt, yet his agent in Vienna wrote that they were 
favorable, and that Prince Metternich desired him to stay 
there. On the 7th of July, 1832, Colonel Collins arrived 
from Vienna, and by his accounts determined Joseph to go. 
Colonel Collins had been an aid-de-camp of General Excels- 
mans, was Flemish born, had a brother employed in the Aus- 
trian court, and assured Joseph that things were ripe for the 
plans by which Napoleon II. was to be enthroned in France. 
Colonel Collins remained, I believe, at Point Breeze till his 
departure Avith Joseph for England. On the 7th of July, 1832, 
I met him there, together with M. Lacoste, now consul-general 
of the French Bepublic in this country, who was a frequent 
guest and constant adherent of Joseph Bonaparte. On the 
19th of July, 1832, he called to take leave of me Alarming 
accounts were in the public journals of the extreme illness and 
probable death of the Duke of Beichstadt, which I was about 
mentioning to his uncle ; but, perceiving that any such intima- 
tion would prove extremely unwelcome, as every thing was 
fixed for his sailing next day, I checked myself, without allu- 
.sion to them. He was in excellent spirits and health, hopeful, 
though not sanguine, of a prosperous voyage. Next day, the 
20th of July, 1832, he embarked from Philadelphia, in the 
h^hip Alexander, Captain Brown, with Colonel Collins ; Joseph's 
secretary, Captain Sari, his wife and three children ; M. Louis 
Maillard, Joseph's most confidential attendant during many 
years, now his testamentary executor ; Parrot, the cook who 
came with Joseph to America ; three other men-servants, and 
one female. General Thomas Cadwalader, going to Europe 
for the Bank of the United States, concerning the five per 
cent, stocks, as mentioned in my Chapter 12, Vol. ii., page 



400 JOSEPH IN ENGLAND. 

273, went fellow-passenger in the same vessel. On the 16th 
of August, 1832, they reached Liverpool ; where the pilot who 
boarded their vessel gave Joseph his first intelligence of the 
Duke of Reichstadt's death. Encouraged, by the enactment 
of the English Reform Bill, to believe that establishing popu- 
lar sovereignty in England would help to overthrow divine 
right royalty in France, urged by several of his own family 
and many of their advocates, and considering that his position 
and his duty required him to afford, by his personal presence, 
an opportunity to the imperialists to try their strength with 
the nation, the senior male member of the Bonaparte family 
ventured to place himself in England, at hand for any French 
movement. His mother's extreme old age, and his wife's feeble 
health, were ostensible motives for the voyage. His mother's 
plain good sense and strong affection for the son who, after 
raising her humble family to the pinnacle of grandeur, had 
been tortured to death in English imprisonment, revolted at 
the residence of any of her children in England, and disap- 
proved of Joseph's going there ; but his brothers, Lucien and 
Jerome, both needy and extravagant ; his brother Louis's son, 
Louis Napoleon, now President of the French Republic ; Eu- 
gene Beauharnois's son, the Duke of Leuchtenburg ; Joseph's 
younger daughter, Charlotte, widow of Louis's eldest son, and 
many of the French, discontented with Bourbon government, 
visited Joseph in England. An effort was made there to unite 
the republican with the imperial party, on which errand 
Messrs. Bastide, Rouen, Thibodeaux, and Thomas, all repub- 
licans, visited Joseph, and held long confidential consul- 
tations with him, in London. Some of the French military 
men, unable to go there, met, by appointment, at Ostend, 
Louis Napoleon, the present President of the republic, who 
reported, on his return to his uncle, encouraging accounts from 
La Fayette and Lafitte. Louis Napoleon, young, ardent, and 
sanguine, went so far in the projected fusion of the imperial 
and republican parties as to ask in marriage one of La Fay- 
ette's granddaughters. But the attempted union of parties 
failed, as Joseph believed, by reason of Louis Philippe's suc- 
ceeding to get the republicans to require conditions to which 



JOSEPH IX ENGLAND. 401 

Joseph would not subscribe. Lucien and Jerome were not 
parties to that projected alliance. Louis's son, Louis Napo- 
leon, agreed with Joseph in all but one thing : the senior was 
invariably opposed to all rash, precipitate movement ; whereas 
the young man, more enterprising, insisted on imm.ediate 
action. 

On the 12th of October, 1832, Joseph, by a kind letter, 
opened a correspondence with which he condescended to honor 
me, "though he had no ncAVS to give, always waiting for ansAvers 
to demands, to enable him to see what was to be his future, of 
which he knew no more than the first day of his arrival. 
Still he ■\vrote, firmly convinced that I was one of his Ameri- 
can friends who most regretted the fatal tidings which met his 
landing at Liverpool. His reception by the population at 
Liverpool and London, and that which he received from all 
classes, astonished him, and very agreeably. Opinion was 
quite changed ; and, by the good will he experienced, he might 
think himself in the United States. It had been out of his 
power to visit Italy, notwithstanding pressing instances of his 
mother and his wife, both very ill there. All that had been 
published of his mother's will was mere invention, for what 
purpose he did not know. He knew no more in London about 
peace or war than was known in Philadelphia. He found the 
public mind in Europe much Americanized. I must not doubt 
liow happy he was to say what he could of our happy country ; 
which satisfied a sentiment of gratitude by performing the duty 
of a man of truth." On the 13th of January, 1833, he wrote 
that he " hoped to see me in the United States before the close 
of that year, hoping that I knew him well enough to think 
that nothing but a sentiment of duty would detain him in Eu- 
rope. He was not yet able to go to Italy. His youngest 
(laughter had joined him in London ; and in the spring they 
would see about it." On the 11th of February, 1833, he wrote 
that "he had heard with great pleasure of the settlement of the 
controversy between the United States and Carolina ; desiring 
me, if I saw Mr. Clay, to recall him to that gentleman's recol- 
lection, by whose reception at Washington, on the point of his 
departure, he had been much gratified. Nothing should be 
Vol. III.— 26 



402 JOSEPH'S LETTERS. 

omitted to preserve the union of the States, which some modi- 
fications of the tariff ought not to affect. Union could not be 
purchased at too high a price. Its injury would give free 
scope to the calumnious outbreaks of the puffers of the doc- 
trines of the middle ages. Europe is far from being at ease. 
The principles of the two ages are at issue. The majority are 
everywhere agreed to march with the age ; organized minorities 
are invested with all the influences and all the powers conferred 
by existing political organizations. Great riches are also coa- 
lesced among themselves to remain what they are, and even, 
God helping, to become what they were in the good old times. 
The issue will be favorable to the progress of human reason : 
but it is possible that this foreseen success may not be the 
impromptu you desire. It is not improbable that I shall be 
with you before the end of the year. The misery is extreme 
here. He did not think that at any epoch of history a nation 
has been so oppressed with the weight of fiscal duties, ren- 
dering the existence of every individual a problem. Parlia- 
ment is assembled, and much expected from its deliberations. 
But you get the English papers, atid know as much as I do of 
the country." 

He continued to write thence throughout 1833, '34, and 
part of 1835, much in the same way. "No individual," he 
said, " was of any avail ; movements must be the acts of mul- 
titudes." Disappointed in expectations, never sanguine, he 
looked anxiously to permanent return to this country. In a 
letter of the 3d of May, 1834, he wrote — 

"What is passing in Europe justifies the apprehensions you had three I 
years since. England is the only shelter from the Holy Alliance ; and not 
so good as America. You are very happy there. Try to be convinced of 
it, and to preserve your happiness." 

On the 19th of July, 1834, he wrote — 

" In France a cruel and sanguinary despotism has supplanted the reign 
of order and liberty, with which good people flattered themselves, and the 
rogues who raised to the throne the son of Philip Egalite. They have 
gathered the grain they planted. The nation was violated, after three days, 
by certain deputies, either sold or duped. It is poor consolation for you and 
me to have predicted what has happened ; and I should be with you as 



JOSEPH'S LETTERS. 403 

soon as this letter, if not detained by duties purely domestic, and the abso- 
lute will of my mother and wife, whom I have promised to wait here still 
another year, in the hope that, between now and then, there will be a mo- 
ment of light in politics, to allow me to go and say a last farewell to an 
octogenarian mother and a sick wife, both women of the most angelic virtue 
and sublime resolution. I am more than ever disgusted with Europe, and 
if I conid hope to snatch from it mj>hiother and wife, without fearing to lose 
them both on the way, you would not be delayed in seeing us all on your 
happy shores. But, apprehending the fate of the Trojan, I give one more 
year to filial piety and conjugal love. Politics have nothing to do with the 
prolongation of my stay in Europe. I believe that time has accomplished, 
and that the time has already come, which we predicted three years ago, 
when tiiose who made 18.30 are themselves unable safely to conduct the 
bark for those who will take charge of it after them. See what has befallen 
your hero. Nothing good, in the end, came of a bad principle. The 
usurpation of national power by certain individuals, whatever may be their 
good qualities, cannot have the assent of the popular masses. Fever is in 
their blood; who is the man of force to appease it and restrain them? 
America offers a better destiny. I send you a work less irrational than so 
many others with which the factions inundate the public on Napoleon, to 
which I have added some marginal notes." 

That book and letter were brought to me from England by 
the Count of Survilliers' cook, before married in this country, 
and anxious to return to it, being succeeded in England by 
Chandeleur, the Emperor's cook at St. Helena. In a letter of 
the 27th of August, 1834, he wrote — 

" The misfortune is, that you and I were right four years ago. Would 
to God we had been mistaken, and that the three days' revolution, ending 
by a great political crime, the usurpation, by a few individuals, of the 
popular power, raising to the throne an individual not voted by the people, 
liad not borne its fruits. But injustice produces only injustice and public 
misfortune. Try to live quietly, in order to escape the grave which encloses 
Europe, and from which no one is able to emerge. Or rather preserve, 
where you are, that spirit of equality, which is individual justice, which I 
will come to enjoy, and we will make vows that Europe may enjoy too, 
when tired of the system of deception, of venality, of sordid interest, of 
envenomed hatreds among all classes of society, who are themselves 
labored by the demon of avarice to such a degree that, in order to reach 
wealth, they will have only large budgets, of which the proceeds are dis- 
puted at the expense of the people, kept under by the billion of soldiers that 
cover Europe." 

On the 18th of October, 1835, he retm-ned to Philadelphia 
in the ship Monongahela, Captain Brown, after three years' 



404 Joseph's eetukn to America. 

residence in England, where the social tone, the climate, the 
facilities for personal intercourse with his brothers and other 
members of his family, all pleased him. But the expense of 
living as he deemed it proper, was very great — one year, I 
believe, as much as a hundred thousand dollars. Still he was 
gratified on the whole ; and, on 4he 31st of December, 1835, 
told me that actual practical comparison between England and 
America had changed some of his opinions in favor of that 
country against this. In April, 1836, he told me that Lucien, 
in and from England, urged Joseph to establish himself in 
England, in order to be at hand for any favorable opportunity. 
Lucien was poor and expensive, and, I believe, found Joseph 
accommodating for his wants. He asked me what I thought 
of his returning to Europe, where his visit, he said, had been 
very expensive, as he had to live beyond his means, among the 
very opulent, whose style of living was very ostentatious. 
The death of his mother, however, added a hundred thousand 
dollars to his funds (he told me, sometime afterwards, one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand). The impression had been, he said, 
that he was an inferior man, and he believed that personal 
intercourse with him in Europe had tended, and would still 
further tend to remove that impression. As his hopes were in 
popular elevation, he relied much on O'Connell and reform. 
With all those impressions, and additional means of living at 
least another year in England, he suddenly made up his mind 
to go there again. On the 28th of June, 1836, he wrote to 
me from New York, that he was there to embark on the first 
of July, as he did in the ship Philadelphia, Captain Morgan, 
for London ; whence he wrote to me, on the 16th of August, 
1836, that he was not then allowed to go to Italy, but in per- 
fect health, and begged me to believe he stated nothing but 
the truth, when declaring that he hoped to see me one day on 
the banks of the Delaware. Next spring, on the 27th of 
April, 1837, he wrote, complaining of the detestable climate, 
where the sun was seldom visible ; all his household had had 
the influenza, and had found the first three years of his 
London residence much more agreeable in temperature than 
the last. 



JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 405 

ITis nephew's attempt at Strasbourg, in October, 183G, to 
overthrow the government of King Louis Philippe, was made 
not only without Joseph's knowledge, but extremely against 
liis settled and pronounced judgment of what was best. He 
Avas inflexibly opposed to all conspiracy, insurrection, and vio- 
lence of any sort; firmly convinced that all any Bonaparte 
could or should do was to follow spontaneous popular move- 
ments, not lead or force them. I have understood (but not 
from Joseph, whom I never heard mention the subject) that 
the Strasbourg revolt was better planned, more formidable, 
and more likely to succeed than its immediate and apparently 
easy defeat indicated. Louis Napoleon, arrested, tried, con- 
demned, pardoned, banished, and transported to South Ame- 
rica, came to the United States, spent a month or two in New 
York, and hastened to Switzerland, where his mother wa3 
very ill. 

On the 30th of September, 1838, Joseph landed, from Eng- 
land, in America, with M. Thiebaut, as secretary, in place of 
Captain Sari, and M. Thiebaut's daughter, instead of Madame 
Sari, as the lady of his household. In April, 1839, his family 
was distressed by tidings of the death of his daughter Char- 
lotte, Avidow of Napoleon Louis, eldest son of Louis Bonaparte, 
who died in 1830. By the Avill of his uncle. Cardinal Fesch, 
dated the 4th of January, 1839, and who died in that year, 
a large collection of paintings at Rome, valued at much more 
than they sold for, were bequeathed to Joseph. Thus induced, 
and by accession of means enabled to return to England again, 
on the 25th of October, 1839, he called to tell me that he was 
to embark at New York the first of November. I spent the 
evening with him, at his town residence, in Girard Roav, Chest- 
nut street, Philadelphia. During his last visit to this country, 
his health, though still good, was not so invariable as it had 
been, and he wished to be in town during winter, near Dr. 
Chapman. AVitli the feverish feelings, hopes, and fears kept 
up by visits to Europe, dreams of restoration to France, perhaps 
to high station there, the quiet residence on the banks of the 
Delaware lost part of its philosophical attractions, and Joseph's 
calm mind underwent great chancres of views. After his return 



406 JOSEPH IN AMERICA. 

from England, in September, 1838, he told me, in a long dis- 
cursive confidential talk, at his town residence, Christmas of 
that year, that he had no hopes. The powers of Europe, 
he said, were all against the Bonapartes, who had nothing left 
for them but the chapter of accidents. They were as much, 
he thought, opposed to the Bourbons. Eugene Beauharnois 
had some chance, because Russia and Austria might support 
him ; and all European monarchies were opposed to a French 
republic. In order to get up some provisional or republican 
movement, his nephew, Louis Napoleon, had proposed to marry 
a Lasteyrie, granddaughter of La Fayette, and so unite with 
him. Talleyrand, Joseph said, used to represent La Fayette 
to the Emperor as a knave, false and hypocritical, pretending 
to simplicity ; and Talleyrand always strove, from his per- 
sonal American experience, to prejudice the Emperor against 
this country. In that conversation, Joseph mentioned the de- 
sign to marry his eldest daughter (Charles Bonaparte's wife) 
to the Emperor of Austria ; for which, he said, she was edu- 
cated, one of the emperor's four wives having been sister of 
the wife of Eugene Beauharnois. Between that conversation, 
in December, 1838, and his sudden return to England, in No- 
vember, 1839, Joseph's mind seemed to be quite changed from 
despondency to confidence. On the 25th of October, 1839, 
when he called to take leave of me and announce his departure 
from New York the first of November, he was in good hopes 
and spirits. Captain Morgan, of the packet-ship Philadelphia, 
with his family, had paid a visit to Point Breeze, and assured 
Joseph of a short, pleasant passage from New York to Liver- 
pool, which encouraged his going when he did, sooner than 
before intended. Although by Cardinal Fesch's will nearly 
all his property, and the testamentary disposition of it, were 
bequeathed to Joseph, yet there were small legacies to other 
members of his family, who were extremely urgent that he 
should be in Europe to expedite their interests. That business 
and his wife's infirm health were ostensible motives for his de- 
parture from New York, in the ship Philadelphia, Captain 
Morgan, the first of November, 1839, who landed him in Eng- 
land, after a short passage. Hiring a pleasant house, in Re- 



JOSEPH IN ENGLAND. 407 

gent's Park, London, he passed the winter there, seeing his 
nephew, Louis Napoleon, constantly, and inclined to believe 
that their authorized restoration to France was at hand. 
French and English public journals coincided in predicting 
important events soon to take place in France, where M. 
Thiers was bringing Louis Philippe's administration nearer 
than it ever had been to Bonapartist and anti-English senti- 
ments. Joseph was led to consider his return to Europe ne- 
cessary and beneficial to his family and their cause. His recep- 
tion in England, by all classes, was flattering ; government 
gave orders, such as are awarded only for princes and foreign 
ministers, that his effects should pass the custom-houses with- 
out examination ; his health was excellent, and his hopes 
higher than they ever had been. A letter from a member of 
his household to me, dated June 1st, 1840, predicted great 
results, if not a new order of things, from the resolution of 
the French Chamber of Deputies to transport the Emperor's 
remains from St. Helena, with great funeral pomp, to Paris. 
" M. Thiers has opened the barrier. Will he be able to turn 
it to Louis Philippe's advantage ? All the world is occupied 
with the reparatory ceremony. All the young and generous 
want to go to St. Helena. The affair must bring about great 
changes. If the ministry expect to do things by halves and 
only popularize Louis Philippe, they may mistake ; for the 
masses in France clearly pronounce themselves in favor of the 
great man and his family." 

Just then, and for nearly the last time, Joseph Bonaparte 
appeared before the world to vindicate his brother's rights 
concerning the Emperor's sword, which King Louis Philippe 
took from its depository, General Bertrand, by unworthy royal 
coercion, placing Bertrand in a very false position. When he 
visited this country, in 1844, where he Avas welcomed and feted 
with universal respect and admiration, as the most faithful of 
the followers of the fallen Emperor, General Bertrand appeared 
to be a mild, modest old gentleman, little like the warrior who 
followed Napoleon over so many bloody fields. Whether gen- 
tleness of spirit, or the almost universal proneness of men to 
obsequiousness to monarchs, induced Bertrand to sui'render 



408 napoleon's swokd. 

Napoleon's sword to a Bourbon who, in Spain, asked leave to 
draw his own against him, and was the most jealous and un- 
compromising of the three Bourbon kings, to keep the Bona- 
parte family out of France, certain it is that the Emperor's 
glorious weapon was given up by Bertrand to Louis Philippe 
with unmanly subservience, when the grand-marshal of his 
palace should and might have much enhanced his high histo- 
rical character for fidelity and constancy, by preferring his old 
master's sword to his new master's favor. 

By Napoleon's will, his arms were left to his son, to be de- 
livered to him at sixteen years of age ; which bequest his grand- 
father, the Emperor of Austria, took care should not be fulfilled 
at that or any other period of young Napoleon's life, w^hase 
death, at twenty-two years of age, devolved the arms upon the 
other members of his father's family. By the will, Bertrand 
was charged to take care of and keep " the sword which I wore 
at Austeriitz," together with several other articles mentioned 
in the same clause with it, " and to deliver them to my son, 
when he shall be sixteen years old." Bertrand put the sword 
away in a place of safe concealment, and kept it eighteen 
years or more, without endeavoring to deliver it, as young 
Napoleon was always under strict Austrian tutelage ; nor was 
it till 1831 that the fugitive Marmont was allowed by the Aus- 
trian grandfather, and his mentor, Metternich, to let the once 
King of Rome know who his father was, or open the son's 
mind to that father's marvellous life, death, and history. By 
that time, the Empress Maria Louisa had become the mother 
of several illegitimate children ; a daughter, who married the 
son of Count SanViteli, her chamberlain of Parma; a son, 
called Count Montenuovo, commissioned in an Austrian regi- 
ment ; and a second daughter, who died a child. It is not 
certain whether that degraded princess waited her husband 
Napoleon's death before she sufiered an Austrian officer, born 
in France, named Niepperg, whom she finally married, to be- 
come the father of those children. It is said that her dis- 
gusting sensuality sought gratification, at last, with her stable- 
boy. That unworthy relict claimed Napoleon's arms, and 
other things, on the death of their son. Joseph, in London, 



napoleon's sword. 409 

in 1832, hearing of that profanation, immediately took the 
legal opinion of Odilon Barrot, Avhich resumed an elaborate 
view of the "whole subject by the conclusion that, by the civil 
law, the arms, &c., devolved on the paternal family of Napo- 
leon's son ; by the political law, they are the property of 
France, and should be delivered to the French government ; 
by which delivery. Napoleon's trustees would satisfy, at the 
same time, the principles of right, the presumed Avill of the 
testator, and the honor of France. Eighteen more of the 
eminent lawyers of France, among them Phihp Dupin and 
Cremieux, who drew Joseph Bonaparte's will, confirmed Bar- 
rot's opinion. On the 28th of August, 1833, from London, 
Joseph wrote to those legal advisers, that, piu'suant to their 
opinion, Napoleon's arms should be, without any intervention, 
appended by General Bertrand to the national column, and 
confided to the charge of the people of Paris. The French 
government, under Louis Philippe, endeavored to possess 
itself of those effects of Napoleon. But Joseph's letter, with 
natural feelings of both affection and aversion, declared that 
he who received them from Napoleon's hands, with his last 
sigh, would not betray his vow by confiding them to enemies' 
hands, of whatever country they might be. After Bertrand' s 
return from America to France, when King Louis Philippe Avas 
prevailed upon, by his minister, Thiers, to ask England to 
allow Napoleon's remains to be transported from their burial- 
place in St. Helena to France, for that pm-pose the king's 
naval son, thePrince of Joinville, was sent with a frigate, and 
General Bertrand accompanied him, to fetch the remains. 
Before going, Bertrand, being pressed by the government to 
deliver the Emperor's sword to <the king, published that, to his 
inquiry of Napoleon what Bertrand should do with the arms 
bequeathed, in case of the son's premature death preventing 
their delivery to him, the Emperor said, " Then you will keep 
them; you may as well have them as another." As soon as 
this tardy revelation was thus published, Joseph opened a cor- 
respondence with Bertrand, who finally wrote that he had no 
right to the arms, and would deposit them, as Joseph pre- 
scribed, at the Hotel of Invalides. On the 9th of :Mav, 1840, 



410 napoleon's sword. 

Bertrand, from Paris, wrote to Joseph, in London, tliat " the 
Emperor's last wish had become that of all France, which he 
considered it his duty to accomplish. Even though the result 
should not be as favorable as we must desire, the arms of Na- 
poleon shall be delivered to the government of the Invalides, 
and you will recognise, in what remains for me to do, all my 
desire to be agreeable." Misled by the equivocal terms of that 
promise, Joseph, on the 20th of May, 1840, wrote from Lon- 
don to Marshal Moncey, then governor of the Invalides, that 
the Emperor's sword would be taken by his grand-marshal, 
whom Joseph had charged to deliver it to Moncey, as governor 
of the Invalides, where his ashes were about to be deposited. 
But, on the 4th of June, 1840, the sword was handed, at a 
public presentation, by Bertrand to the king, previous to Ber- 
trand's departure for St. Helena, to fetch the ashes. "I 
depose," said he to the king, "in your majesty's hands, these 
glorious arms, which I have been so long obliged to hide, and 
which I hope soon to j)lace on the coffin of the great captain, 
at the illustrious tomb destined to fix the regards of the uni- 
verse." The king acknowledged the deposit, but refused to 
accept it from the Emperor's family, resisting, as Bertand 
wrote to Joseph, his most pressing instances for that purpose. 
Bertrand, confessing to Joseph his pain at being thus over- 
ruled, nevertheless suffered the king to keep the sword in his 
palace, till the general's return from St. Helena with the Em- 
peror's remains. On the 6tli of June, 1840, Joseph, from 
London, replied to Bertrand's letters with dignity and pro- 
priety, protesting against his subserviency. Tlie Emperor's 
nephew, Louis Napoleon, also, and with more pungency than 
Joseph, published his protest, in the newspapers, against be- 
traying the trust "by surrendering to one of the luchy hy Wa- 
terloo, the sword of the conquered there." 

The treaty of Fontainebleau, of the 11th of April, 1814, 
was broke in all its stipulations by the Bourbon government, 
to the wrong of the Bonapartes. Refusing to pay them the 
sums it stipulated for their support, those royal faith-breakers, 
insolently apt to hold themselves above contracts, provoked and 
justified Napoleon's return from Elba to France, not only by 



Joseph's donation. 411 

■withholding the means stipulated for his support, but by con- 
trivances to get rid of him, either by assassination or trans- 
portation to the distant and baleful rock, Ayhere, under color 
of imprisonment, his lingering dissolution was perpetrated. 
Bertrand's surrender of tlie sword which, at Austerlitz, dazzled 
and confounded the brilliant autocrat of Russia, terrified and 
vanquished the mighty Emperor of Germany, and struck the 
greatest of British premier's death-blow, was one of the innu- 
merable proofs that the brave-ennobled creatures of Napoleon's 
Empire were almost all no better than followers of his fortune, 
constant to that only, faithless to him, to themselves, to honor, 
and truth. What a contrast Macdonald's even relative fidelity 
is to the despicable time-serving of nearly all the resjt ! 

The last of the vexations and mortifications Joseph under- 
went in England preceded so shortly his prostration there by 
palsy, in June, 1840, that it was supposed to have partly caused 
that misfortune. At Rochefort, in July, 1815, when about to 
embark for America, Napoleon made a sort of testamentary 
disposition of certain bonds or exchequer bills, payable to order, 
secured on the national forests of France, amounting to six 
millions of francs, which he told Joseph, if it so happened that 
they never met again, to use as he might deem that Napoleon 
would desire. On the 3d of May, 1815, the Emperor was 
about reimbursing himself and his family twelve millions six 
hundred thousand francs, arrears of their pension, stipulated 
by the treaty of Fontainebleau, which the Bourbon govern- 
ment, in violation of that treaty, had not paid. The Emperor 
would have ordered payment in coin, but that Carnot, his 
Secretary of War, complained of the scarcity of cash to p:ty 
the recruits every day marching to the army, and Joseph sug- 
gested that in similar straits, in Spain, he had issued paper- 
obligations, payable for public dues at the treasury. Instead 
of taking payment in gold, the Emperor therefore caused 
bonds or exchequer bills, payable to bearer, to be issued, se- 
cured on the national forests. One of Louis XVIII. 's unge- 
nerous acts of wanton and spiteful power, within four days 
after the battle of Waterloo, was to annul those exchequer 
bills or bonds. The whole twelve millions six hundred thou- 



412 Joseph's donation. 

sand francs, appropriated to pay the Bonaparte famil}^ the 
pensions due to them by the treaty of Fontainebleau, were 
declared void. In 1840, Marshal Clausel, as chairman of a 
committee, reported to the Chamber of Deputies a resolution 
appropriating one million of francs, to pay the charges of 
conveying Napoleon's remains from St. Helena to France ; 
when a motion, by another member, proposing to add another 
million, being rejected by vote of the chamber, Joseph, on 
the 26th of May, 1840, wrote from London to Marshal 
Clausel, offering to subscribe the additional million, but 
payable out of the annulled six millions of exchequer bills, 
which had been buried in a strong box, by M. Clary, 
Joseph's brother-in-law, and restored to him when he first 
visited London, in 1832. Two millions of the six Joseph 
there let his brother Jerome have ; two more he proposed, 
in 1840, to give, of which one million was to pay for trans- 
porting the Emperor's remains, and another million to be dis- 
tributed among the survivors of the Emperor's old guard. -But 
the whole twelve millions six hundred thousand francs issued 
by the Emperor in exchequer bills, of which the six millions 
were a part, having been annulled, Joseph's gift of the two 
millions was therefore not only repudiated by the French go- 
vernment as worthless, but charged as a cunning contrivance 
to realize an extinguished and unfounded claim. The public 
journals, and, what was most annoying to Joseph, among them 
the republican, contradicted and censured his attempt, as they 
said, not only to bestow what he had not, but to keep for him- 
self the balance of two millions, which would remain and be his 
property, if allowed to dispose of the other two millions which 
he affected to give away. Accused of an unworthy attempt to 
realize what had no value, and make a show of patriotic muni- 
ficence by a fictitious, if not fraudulent, donation, that was, I 
believe, the first time when Joseph was ever charged with the 
duplicity often imputed to Napoleon as one of his Italian charac- 
teristics. Joseph's reputation had been that of an honest, but 
weak and subservient man. In this affair, the double dealing, 
in which Napoleon's enemies said he dealt, was published as 
also part of Joseph's character. Instead of any credit for the 



Joseph's illness. 413 

gift lie seemed to make, the French government press im- 
peached him for a fraud, and the republican press, the French 
republican party, by which he sought restoration to France 
and to power, joined in the impeachment. In 1815, at Roche- 
fort, when Joseph asked Napoleon what he should do with the 
six millions of francs in bonds which he handed to him, Napo- 
leon told him that they would be annulled by the royal govern- 
ment ; so that it was in fact a mere demonstration against King 
Louis Philippe and his ministry that Joseph attempted, in 
1840, by means of that confiscated fund. 

About the time of that occurrence, Joseph sent to Paris for 
M. Cremieux, to go to London, for the purpose of drawing his 
last will and testament. M. Cremieux, an eminent lawyer 
and member of the French Chamber of Deputies, largely in- 
strumental in the revolution of February, 1848, which de- 
throned Louis Philippe, accompanied by his wife, went from 
Paris to London, and there drew the will, on the 14th of June, 
1840, which was not signed and executed till the 17th of that 
month. Meantime Joseph was struck with the palsy, from 
which, though much relieved at first by copious bleeding, and 
afterwards still more by the tepid baths of Wildbad, in Ger- 
many, he never entirely recovered. His right hand and leg 
and all that side were rendered extremely feeble, sometimes 
useless. 

Then seventy-two years old, disappointed in most men, dis- 
gusted, mortified, harassed, and tried beyond endurance, struck 
down by the paralytic attack, which nearly deprived him of the 
use of half of his body, he languished four years, till relieved 
by death. A hearty feeder, and so extremely abstemious of 
drink that it seemed to me his health would have been better 
for eating less and drinking more, in addition to the vexations 
of his life in London, deprived there of the robust exercise 
which at Point Breeze was his daily enjoyment, out of doors 
from sunrise to sunset, perhaps in this country Joseph might 
have lived longer. Shortly before he first went to England, 
excellent in health and buoyant in spirits, he spoke to mo 
cheerfully, almost merrily, of living as long as his mother, who 
survived till eighty-four years old. But from the time he left 



414 Joseph's distress. 

America, exercised bj alternate hopes and fears, till at length 
highly excited to encouragement by the translation of the Em- 
peror's remains to France, still tormented by exclusion from 
his country, provoked by King Louis Philippe's spoliation of 
the Emperor's talisman sword, and mortified by the recoil of 
his unlucky proffer of additional funds to commemorate the 
Emperor's glory, his brother Joseph sunk. 

From his landing in England, in August, 1832, when the 
fatal death of the Duke of Reichstadt encountered him, 
throughout his eight years of fitful, equivocal abiding in Eng- 
land, six times crossing the Atlantic for it, in all that period 
nothing went well. Joseph's last years, not indeed as disastrous 
as Napoleon's, were distressingly portentous of the end of any 
Bonaparte dynasty. In the last letter he could write to me, on 
the 11th of June, 1840, he said: "My position is very singu- 
lar. The more favorable French opinion is to us, the more do 
the unjust laws which remove us from our country acquire 
force as to those for whom they are made, and who see^c to 
deceive the public by deceitful testimonials of interest they 
affect for the Emperor and for the fifty persons who are out 
of France only because the people wish them in France. I 
have written to Paris for a newspaper, to be sent to you, by 
which you may have the penetration to judge whether we shall 
remain abroad or return to France." The suspense and con- 
flict proved too much for him. On the 22d of July, 1840, a 
letter from a member of his family apprised me of his danger- 
ous attack, three weeks before. Though constantly getting 
better, his physicians, deeming the English clnnate unfavora- 
ble to him, advised the warm baths of Wildbad, in Wirtemburg, 
and then repose in the mild climate at Florence, with his 
family. 

Lucien Bonaparte, a man almost as remarkable for his strong 
peculiar characteristics as Napoleon, intended to make a long 
stay in London, where he enjoyed the hospitalities returned 
extensively for those which, in the days of his prosperity, he 
had bestowed on the English. Poor, but intellectual, engaging, 
and distinguished, Lucien, more brilliant than Joseph, like him 
a constant supporter of Napoleon in misfortune, died at Vi- 



JOSEPH AT FLORENCE. 415 

terbo, on a visit to Italy, wlien Joseph was too ill in England 
to bear the emotion of being informed of his brother's death. 

Louis Napoleon's second attempt, that at Boulogne, occurred 
in August, 1840. On the 17th of September, 1840, Joseph 
returned from Germany to England. " The King of Naples 
and Grand Duke of Tuscany," said my letter from his house- 
hold, dated the 27th of that month, " are afraid that his 
sojourn at Florence might injure them. The warm baths at 
Wildbad were beginning to do him good, when the affair at 
Boulogne, the death of his brother Lucien, and this last cry- 
ing injustice, have again deranged his health, which needs the 
utmost care and management. How we regret the quiet of 
Point Breeze and excellent Dr. Chapman, to establish his pre- 
cious health. By leaving the United States, there are proofs 
at hand to show, that he sacrificed himself for his relations. 
He cannot write, but charges me with his friendship for you." 
A postscript, of the 28th September, 1840, adds : " This is 
the day when the trial of the accused at Boulogne begins." 
On the 27th of February, 1841, another letter, from the same 
correspondent, informed me that Joseph had hired Lord Den- 
bigh's country-seat, Lutterworth, ninety miles from London by 
the Birmingham railroad, the London atmosphere being deemed 
unwholesome for him ; and that Count Demidoff, a rich Kussian 
nobleman, had married Jerome Bonaparte's daughter Matilda. 
Joseph's name in his own writing, much deteriorated, was 
signed to a kind letter dictated by him to me, from Florence, 
the 28th of September, 1841, where he was at last settled in 
the midst of his family : his wife, their eldest daughter and her 
husband, with eight or nine children, his brothers, Louis and 
Jerome Bonaparte, with Jerome's two sons. Other letters of the 
same kind followed. One, dated Florence, the 14th of March, 
1843, says : " I can not but approve your project of writing 
in English my brother's life, taking the time necessary to col- 
lect all the information you will need ; and I do not doubt its 
success. I regret much that my health does not permit my 
helping you ; but I have written to Mr. Presle, my former 
secretary and agent at Paris, to send you the note you desire 
of the best works to consult, and to add to them all the infor- 



416 JOSEPH'S DEATH. 

mation lie can afford. He has written to me that he "will em- 
ploy himself and write to you on the subject. Abel Hugo's 
abridgment of the Emperor's history, which I gave you, will 
be very useful. It is written in a good sense." On the 10th 
of June, 1843, M. Presle wrote to me from Paris that, con- 
formably to Count Survilliers's recommendation, he had con- 
ferred with some friends there, who agreed with him in recom- 
mending to me M. Gallois's work, and that of M. Thiboudeau. 
in ten volumes, entitled "History of the Consulate and the Em- 
pire," remarkable for the talents and impartiality of the author, 
who was in a position to see well and judge well. " Those 
works, added to information you have from conversations with 
Count Survilliers, will enable you to compose the biography." 
A letter, dated Florence, the 7th of August, 1844, informed 
me of Joseph Bonaparte's death there, the 28th of July of 
that year. His last moments were without suffering, and he 
expired surrounded by his family, solaced by the truest devo- 
tion and the deepest respect. Great part of the people of 
Florence assisted at his funeral. The Grand Duke's troops 
escorted his remains to the chapel where, according to his last 
will, they are to remain till the gates of France are opened 
for their interment there, as it directs. 

Joseph, a mild and amiable, was not, however, an effeminate 
man. At school, he excelled in belles-lettres, while mathe- 
matics were Napoleon's favorite study. Joseph helped Napo- 
leon with his Latin and French learning ; Napoleon helped 
Joseph with his algebra and Euclid. Joseph was born for 
peace and quiet ; Napoleon for war and tumult. Joseph wrote 
verses and recited those of the great masters ; Napoleon pre- 
ferred Plutarch. Yet Joseph behaved with courage in battle : 
with fortitude and good sense on all occasions. As deputy, 
diplomatist, soldier, king, and exile, he was uniformly liberal, 
well informed and disposed, respectable, benevolent, and just. 
From the principles of '89 he never swerved ; would have in- 
corporated them with the institutions of every country ; and, 
after long, calm, clear, practical comprehension of them in 
their American development, was convinced that they might 
be carried further than they ever had been elsewhere. Like 



Joseph's character. 417 

Napoleon, vain as an Italian or Frenchman, more vain than 
an Englishman or American, though a better republican, as re- 
garded equality, than either the English or Americans, he was 
less republican in his ideas of personal liberty. In England, 
he would have been a Whig, in this country, a disciple of 
Washington. He abhorred the excesses of the French reign 
of terror, yet vindicated Robespierre, whom he well knew, an 
honest, incorruptible enthusiast, no sans culotte, but always 
well dressed and behaved, crushed, said Joseph, under the iron 
wheels of the revolutionary car, as he in vain endeavored to 
check its sanguinary course. Robespierre's brother, who served 
in a civil capacity in the army with Napoleon and Joseph, who 
were both intimate with him, was remarkably amiable, honest, 
virtuous, and disinterested. Eclipsed by Napoleon, Joseph 
looked small beside that giant. Joseph's love of ease fur- 
thermore disparaged him, compared with his indefatigable 
brother. Without the energetic conceptions that produce daring 
courage, war did not electrify Joseph's faculties like Napo- 
leon's, nor battle rouse him to heroism ; tranquil in victory, 
resigned in defeat. When he oifered Napoleon to take his 
place in bed, at Rochefort, feign illness, then embark as the 
Emperor, be probably captured by the English, and, from the 
strong likeness of the two brothers, risk all the Emperor's 
perils of captivity or death, while Napoleon, as Joseph, might 
escape to America, the man of peace displayed courage as 
great as ever signalized the man of war. Without Na- 
poleon's genius, Joseph was quite as fearless. On the 28th 
of Germinal, year XII., Bonaparte, First Consul of the Re- 
public, by special message, nominated to the conservative 
senate the senator Joseph Bonaparte, as having testified the 
desire to share the perils of the army encamped on the shores 
of Boulogne. " The Senate will see with satisfaction that, 
after having rendered to the Republic important services by 
the solidity of his counsel in the weightiest circumstances, by 
the knowledge, skill, and wisdom displayed in several negotia- 
tions, by the treaty of Morfontaine, which terminated our dif- 
ferences with the United States of America, by that of Lune- 
ville, which pacified the Continent, and latterly by that of 
Vol. III. — 27 



418 JOSEPH'S WILL. 

Amiens, -which made peace between France and England, the 
Senator Joseph Bonaparte should be put in a condition to con- 
tribute to the vengeance which the people of France promise 
themselves for the violation of the last-mentioned treaty, and 
to acquire further claims to the esteem of the nation. Having 
served under my eyes in the first campaign of the war, and 
given proofs of his courage and good qualifications for the 
calling of arms in the grade of major, I have nominated him 
as colonel, commandant of the fourth regiment of the line, 
one of the most distinguished corps of the army, counted 
among those who, always placed in the most perilous posts, 
haA^e never lost their colors, and have very often restored or 
decided victory. I therefore ask leave of absence for him 
from the Senate while serving with the army." 

His last will, drawn by M. Cremieux, who went from Paris 
to London for that purpose, was executed in London on the 
18th of June, 1840 ; Dr. Granville, one of the witnesses, cer- 
tifying that he guided the testator's hand, enfeebled by remains 
of palsy. Most of his American real estate is devised to his 
eldest grandson, Joseph, entitled Prince of Musignano. To- 
kens of remembrance, with characteristic kindness, are be- 
queathed to several friends, among them the late Judge Joseph 
Hopkinson, named one of the executors of the will. Dr. Chap- 
man, Mr. Short; and to me the small bronze statue of Napo- 
leon as general, in the beginning of his career, with his hair 
in a queue, small boots, and other marks of the costume of 
that period. To remove all doubt that might be caused by his 
inability to sign without help the will made in London, a 
codicil to it was added, at Florence, the 17th of September, 
1841, and the whole there registered according to Tuscan law. 
On the 23d of June, 1845, in company with M, Louis Mailliard, 
the surviving testamentary executor, I deposited seven large 
trunks of Joseph Bonaparte's manuscript papers at the United 
States Mint, in Philadelphia. These papers, consisting of 
several hundred of Napoleon's letters, written by him at 
diflferent times to Joseph, and never published, part of a life 
of Joseph, written by himself, but not finished or published, 
and unpublished memoirs of Marshal Jourdan, were kept con- 



REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 419 

ccalcd bj Joseph in Europe, and after liis death sent by stealth 
to this country, by his grandson. Apprehending that they 
might be safer from fire, theft, or other accident, in a public 
than a private place of deposit, at the instance of the executor 
and grandson to -vrhom they Averc bequeathed, I procured per- 
mission from Mr. Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Trea- 
sury, to put the seven trunks in the Mint ; where they were 
accordingly placed, in a dry vault, by Mr. Robert M. Patter- 
son, the president of that institution ; remaining there till, 
conformably to Joseph's will, they became his grandson's pro- 
perty, on his attaining twenty-five years of age, the 18th of 
February, 1849. By virtue of his powers of attorney, they 
were taken from the Mint, the 23d of October, 1849, and de- 
livered to M. Adolphe Malliard, son of the testamentary 
executor, by whom they have been sent to Europe. These 
precious documents are calculated to shed much light on the 
true character of the great man of whom more has been writ- 
ten, and with more misconception, than of any other person- 
age. It is to be anxiously hoped that the young member of 
his family, to whom the trust of their publication is assigned, 
may prove equal to the task, above seduction and temptation. 
During the sixty years from just before Napoleon Bona- 
parte's first appearance to his death, dreadful revolutions con- 
vulsed Europe. On his return to Paris, from his last Italian 
campaign, he told the Directory that the era of representative 
government had arrived. On his way a prisoner banished to 
Elba, he said, it was not the coalition, but liberal ideas, which 
dethroned him. The solace of his incarceration at St. Helena 
was to compose a democratic constitution for the French Em- 
pire. Prophet and victim of that advent, was he not likewise 
its principal architect ? Would France now endure another 
fifty years of such a reign by divine right as that of Louis 
XV. ? Stupid simplicity of Louis XVI., crafty concessions of 
Louis XVIII. , silly reaction of Charles X., wise and vigorous, 
but unrepresentative government by Louis Philippe, nothing 
withstood popular sovereignty, which all Napoleon's genius 
and glory did not enable him to contradict. His catastrophe 
put an end to divine vice-regency for monarchs. In 1800, 



420 FRENCH REVOLUTIONS. 

there was but one parliament in Europe. In 1821, wlien Na- 
poleon expired, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, 
Sardinia, Saxony, "Wirtcmburg, and Bavaria, all had followed 
England in that novelty. Whether melioration or detriment, 
it was a fact which history must recognise. 

Several millions of common people, and so many eminent 
personages, put to death in revolutionary struggles, induce 
most who write of such events to deplore and disfigure their 
occurrence without philosophical explanation, or marking their 
benefits. The number of noble and well-born sacrificed in 
half a century to reform, misleads history. Between forty 
and fifty kings and queens, emperors and princes, dethroned, 
executed, murdered, poisoned, suicided, banished, imprisoned, 
dying of grief, are commemorated by subjects in every lan- 
guage, and their calamities denounced to indignation. Louis 
XVI., his queen and sister beheaded, his son poisoned or tor- 
tured to death, the Duke of Orleans executed, his son Louis 
Philippe and Charles X. deposed, the Duke of Enghein shot, 
the Duke of Berry assassinated, the Duke of Bourbon suicided, 
Napoleon dethroned and imprisoned for life, Joseph, Louis and 
Jerome Bonaparte, Eliza and Caroline dethroned, Murat de- 
throned and shot, Eugene and Hortensia Bonaparte, Em- 
presses Josephine and Maria Louisa dethroned, other Bourbons 
and Bonapartes banished, together with numbers of illustrious 
put to death, faintly epitomise French revolutionary regalia 
convulsing all Europe. The Emperor Paul of Russia assassi- 
nated, the Empress Catharine, Emperor Alexander, and his 
brother Constantino, not one of them believed to have died 
natural deaths ; two Turkish sultans, Selim III. and Mustapha 
IV., massacred ; three Spanish kings, Charles, Ferdinand, and 
Joseph, deposed and banished; several in Portugal, John, 
Pedro, Michael, and Maria ; two emperors of Austria, Joseph 
11. and Leopold IL, poisoned ; and a son of Eugene Beau- 
harnois, Duke of Leuchtenburg, consort of the Queen of Por- 
tugal ; the Queens of Prussia and of Naples driven from their 
countries and dying of grief; the Kings of Sardinia and of 
Etrui'ia, the Dukes of Modena and of Parma, and legions of 
petty German sovereigns dethroned ; one King of Sweden 



BONAPARTE. 421 

assassinated, anotlier deposed ; the King of Great Britain 
insane ; popes put in confinement ; American monarchs, Chris- 
toplie imprisoned, and Iturbide shot — such are some of the 
memorable casualties which adom and pervert revolutionary 
history. But if the misfortunes of comparatively few, how- 
ever eminent, open an era beneficial to all mankind, was too 
much sufiiered for the acquisition ? 

During twenty years of this vast strife, the genius or de- 
mon was Bonaparte. Letters, when a boy at school in France, 
to his parents in Corsica say, one of them, " I dress but 
once a week ;" another, " I eat but one meal a day ;" a third, 
" Can't you spare me 300 francs ($80), to go to Paris and 
seek my fortune?" When, by wisdom, labor, and promotion, 
superhuman, his fortune was made, vanity, weakness, and 
error, blasted the plans of the prodigious hero, with whom no 
other can be compared for intelligence and capacity. 

Washington, by virtuous moderation, surrounded by it in his 
countrymen, founded a republic, rather doubting its stability. 
Another American contemporary, BoHvar, founded another 
republic, without Washington's advantages ; for Bolivar had to 
overcome the traditions and propensities of his countrymen. 
Bonaparte, vainest man of the vainest nation, failed in all but 
what it preferred. The glacial, plain good sense of the justly- 
called Iron Duke, who alone in battle vanquished him, stands 
erect on his Doric pedestal, while the magnificent Corinthian 
column of Bonaparte lies in still brilliant fragments at the 
other's feet. Capable of intense abstraction, with never sur- 
passed reasoning faculty, imbued with mathematical investiga- 
tion, Bonaparte either never had, or lost the power of pa- 
tience ; had no fortitude, but was a creature of passion ; 
worked, raged, ruled, narrated, and expired prematurely, the 
most perplexing illustration of the vanity of human wishes. 

Posterity will account weakness what contemporaries impute 
as wickedness. Less sanguinary, not more rapacious than 
most of them, of his immensity scarce a wreck remains. By 
unequalled victories enormously aggrandized, his empire sub- 
jugated, was reduced below royal or rcpubhcan France. 
Gigantic despotism provoked universal hostihty ; and of all 



422 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 

his achievements, what remains ? Not founder, but chief 
European builder of popuhxr election, the permanent result of 
his career is representative government. 

Revolutionary terrorism and imperial despotism enable his- 
torians, mostly royalists, to deny beneficial reform ; some deny 
that representative government is reform. But few peasants 
any longer believe, or priests teach, that kings are so by right 
divine. Sovereignty of the people, in many parts of Europe, 
in America universally and unanimously, is recognized as their 
right ; acknowledged by several monarchical governments there 
and here. American misapprehension demands democracy as 
indispensable. But recent English exceeds American progress, 
political and economical. Revolution, in 1849, retrograded, 
by attempting to reconstruct society, in addition to reforming 
government. Still, time, the great innovator, is at work. 
Religious reform, in three centuries, has not yet accomplished 
general toleration. English, American, and French revolu- 
tions vindicate profane philosophy, that the voice of the people 
is the voice of God ; monumental, colossal, and erect, among 
the ruins of Napoleon's immensity and downfal. 



END OF VOL. III. 



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